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H . . > • • . . 






“ AND THERE LAY SOMETHING DARK UPON ONE OF THE 
GRASSY MOUNDS. I SPOKE.” 


Page 350. 



St. George and St. Michael 


A NOVEL 


BY 

GEORGE MACDONALD 

AUTHOR OF “MALCOLM,” ETC. 


WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 


NEW YORK 

GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS, Limited 

119 and 121 West 23RD St. 




'O 



THE CAXTON PRESS 
NEW YORK. 



CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I. — Dorothy and Richard 7 

II. — Richard and his Father .... 20 

III. — The Witch 27 

IV. — A Chapter of Fools 31 

V. — Animadversions 47 

VI. — Preparations e Q 


VII. — Reflections . . . . . . .65 

VIII. — An Adventure 70 

IX. — Love and War 88 

X. — Dorothy’s Refuge 99 

XI. — Raglan Castle 108 

XII. — The Two Marquises 118 

XIII. — The Magician’s Vault 130 

XIV. — Several People 139 

XV. — Husband and Wife 149 

XVI. — Dorothy’s Initiation . . . . 159 

XVII. — The Fire Engine 167 

XVIII. — Moonlight and Apple-Blossoms . . 180 

XIX. — The Enchanted Chair 189 

XX. — Molly and the White Horse ... 205 

XXI. — The Damsel which Fell Sick . . .211 

XXII. — The Cataract 219 

XXIII. — Amanda — Dorothy — Lord Herbert . . 227 

XXIV. — The Great Mogul . . . . ✓ 231 

XXV. — Richard Heywood 242 

XXVI. — The Witch’s Cottage .... 250 

XXVII. — The Moat of the Keep . . . .261 

XXVIII.— Raglan Stables 270 


VI 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER 





PAGB 

XXIX. — The Apparition 


• 


. 

. 275 

XXX. — Richard and the Marquis 



. 

, 

280 

XXXI. — The Sleepless 





. 289 

XXXII. — The Turret Chamber 

• 



. 

298 

XXXIII.— Judge Gout .... 





. 305 

XXXIV.— An Evil Time . 





313 

XXXV. — The Deliverer 





. 321 

XXXVI. — The Discovery . 





331 

XXXVII.— The Horoscope . . . 





• 338 

XXXVIII— The Exorcism . 





352 

XXXIX— Newbury 





• 363 

XL. — Love and Treason 





375 

XLI. — Glamorgan .... 





. 385 

XLIl. — A New Soldier . 





391 

XLIII. — Lady and Bishop . 





• 398 

XLIV.— The King .... 





404 

XLV. — The King and the Marquis 





. 421 

XLVI. — Gifts of Healing 





431 

XLVII. — The Poet-Physician 





. 439 

XLVIII. — Honorable Disgrace . 





447 

XLIX. — Siege 






L. — A Sally .... 

• 


• 

• 

473 

LI. — Under the Moat . 




• 

. 485 

LII. — The Untoothsome Plum . 

• 


• 

• 

492 

LIII. — Faithful Foes 


• 


• 

. 498 

LIV. — Domus Dissolvitur 

• 


• 

• 

509 

LV.— R. I. P. . 






LVI. — Richard and Caspar . 





529 

LVII. — The Skeleton . # 





. 539 

LVIII. — Love and No Leasing 




m 

544 

LIX.— Ave ! Vale ! Salve ! 


# 



. 550 


St. George and St. Michael. 


CHAPTER /. 

DOROTHY AND RICHARD. 

I T was the middle of autumn, and had rained all day. 

Through the lozenge-panes of the wide oriel window 
the world appeared in the slowly-gathering dusk not a 
little dismal. The drops that clung trickling to the dim 
glass added rain and gloom to the landscape beyond, 
whither the eye passed, as if vaguely seeking that help in 
the distance which the dripping hollyhocks and sodden 
sunflowers bordering the little lawn, or the honeysuckle 
covering the wide porch, from which the slow rain 
dropped ceaselessly upon the pebble-paving below, could 
not give — steepy slopes, hedge-divided into small fields, 
some green and dotted with red cattle, others crowded 
with shocks of bedraggled and drooping com, which 
looked suffering and patient. 

The room to which the window having this prospect 
belonged was large and low, with a dark floor of uricar- 
peted oak. It opened immediately upon the porch, and, 
although a good fire of logs blazed on the hearth, was 
chilly to the sense of the old man who, with his feet on 
the skin of a fallow-deer, sat gazing sadly into the flames, 
which shone rosy through the thin hands spread out 
before them. At the opposite corner of the great low- 
arched chimney sat a lady past the prime of life, but 
still beautiful, though the beauty was all but merged in 


8 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


the loveliness that rises from the heart to the face of 
such as have taken the greatest step in life — that is, as 
the old proverb says, the step out of doors. She was 
plainly yet rather richly dressed, in garments of an old- 
fashioned and well-preserved look. Her hair was cut 
short above her forehead, and frizzed out in bunches of 
little curls on each side. On her head was a covering of 
dark stuff, like aNjun’s veil, which fell behind and on her 
shoulders. Close round her neck was a string of amber 
beads, that gave a soft harmonious light to her complex- 
ion. Her dark eyes looked as if they found repose 
there, so quietly did they rest on the face of the old 
man, who was plainly a clergyman. It was a small, pale, 
thin, delicately and symmetrically formed face, yet not 
the less a strong one, with endurance on the somewhat 
sad brow, and force in the closed lips, while a good con- 
science looked clear out of the gray eyes. 

They had been talking about the fast-gathering tide 
of opinion which, driven on by the wind of words, had 
already begun to beat so furiously against the moles and 
ramparts of Church and Kingdom. The execution of 
Lord Strafford was news that had not yet begun to “ hiss 
the speaker.” 

“It is indeed an evil time,” said the old man. “The 
world has seldom seen its like.” 

“But tell me, Master Herbert,” said the lady, “why 
comes it in this our day? For our sins or for the sins of 
our fathers?” 

“ Be it far from me to presume to set forth the ways 
of Providence!” returned her guest. “I meddle not, 
like some that should be wiser, with the calling of the 
prophet. It is enough for me to know that ever and 
again the pride of man will gather to 1 a mighty and a 
fearful head,’ and, like a swollen mill-pond overfed of 
rains, burst the banks that confine it, whether they be 


DOROTHY AND RICHARD. 9 

the laws of the land or the ordinances of the church, 
usurping on the fruitful meadows, the hope of life for 
man and beast. — Alas!” he went on, with a new sugges- 
tion from the image he had been using, “ if the beginning 
of strife be as the letting out of water, what shall be the 
end of that strife whose beginning is the letting out of 
blood?” i 

“Think you then, good sir, that thus it has always 
been? that such times of fierce ungodly tempest must 
ever follow upon seasons of peace and comfort? — even 
as your cousin of holy memory, in his verses concerning 
the church militant, writes : 

‘ Thus also sin and darkness follow still 
The church and sun, with all their power and skill.’ ” 

“Truly it seems so. But I thank God the days of my 
pilgrimage are nearly numbered. To judge by the to- 
kens the wise man gives us, the mourners are already 
going about my streets. — The almond tree flourisheth at 
least.” 

He smiled as he spoke, laying his hand on his gray 
head. 

“ But think of those whom we must leave behind us, 
Master Herbert. — How will it fare with them?” said the 
lady in troubled tone, and glancing in the direction of 
the window. 

In the window sat a girl, gazing from it with the look 
of a child who had uttered all her incantations, and 
could imagine no abatement in the steady rain-pour. 

“We shall leave behind us strong hearts and sound 
heads too,” said Mr. Herbert. “And I bethink me 
there will be none stronger or sounder than those of 
your young cousins, my late pupils, of whom I hear 
brave things from Oxford, and in whose affection my 
spirit constantly rejoices.” 


10 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL . 


“ You will be glad to hear such good news of your rela- 
tives, Dorothy,” said the lady, addressing her daughter. 

Even as she said the words, the setting sun broke 
through the mass of gray cloud, and poured over the 
earth a level flood of radiance, in which the red wheat 
glowed, and the drops that hung on every ear flashed 
like diamonds. The girl’s hair caught it as she turned 
her face to answer her mother, and an aureole of brown- 
tinted gold gleamed for a moment about her head. 

“I am glad that you are pleased, madam, but you 
know I have never seen them — or heard of them, except 
from Master Herbert, who has, indeed, often spoke rare 
things of them.” 

“Mistress Dorothy will still know the reason why,” 
said the clergyman smiling, and the two resumed their 
conversation. But the girl rose, and, turning again to 
the window, stood for a moment rapt in the transfigura- 
tion passing upon the world. The vault of grey was 
utterly shattered, but, gathering glory from ruin, was 
hurrying in rosy masses away from under the loftier 
vault of blue. The ordered shocks upon twenty fields 
sent their long purple shadows across the flush, and the 
evening wind, like the sighing that follows departed 
tears, was shaking the jewels from their feathery tops. 
The sunflowers and hollyhocks no longer cowered under 
the tyranny of the rain, but bowed beneath the weight 
of the gems that adorned them. A flame burned as 
upon an altar on the top of every tree, and the very 
pools that lay on the distant road had their message of 
light to give to the hopeless earth. As she gazed, an- 
other hue than that of the sunset, yet rosy too, gradually 
flushed the face of the maiden. She turned suddenly 
from the window, and left the room, shaking a shower of 
diamonds from the honeysuckle as she passed out through 
the porch upon the gravel walk. 


DOROTHY AND RICHARD. 


11 


Possibly her elders found her departure a relief, for, 
although they took no notice of it, their talk became 
more confidential, and was soon mingled with many 
names both of rank and note, with a familiarity which to 
a stranger might have seemed out of keeping with the 
humbler character of their surroundings. 

But when Dorothy Vaughan had passed a corner of 
the house to another garden more ancient in aspect, and 
in some things quaint even to grotesqueness, she was in 
front of a portion of the house which indicated a far 
statelier past — closed and done with, like the rooms 
within those shuttered windows. — The inhabited wing 
she had left looked like the dwelling of a yeoman farming 
his own land ; nor did this appearance greatly belie the 
present position of the family. For generations it had 
been slowly descending in the scale of worldly account, 
and the small portion of the house occupied by the 
widow and daughter of Sir Ringwood Vaughan was 
larger than their means could match with correspondent 
outlay. Such, however, was the character of Lady 
Vaughan that, although she mingled little with the great 
families in the neighborhood, she was so much respected 
that she would have been a welcome visitor to most of 
them. 

The Reverend Mr. Matthew Herbert was a clergyman 
from the Welsh border, a man of some note and influ- 
ence, who had been the personal friend both of his late 
relative George Herbert and of the famous Dr. Donne. 
Strongly attached to the English church, and recoiling 
with disgust from the practices of the puritans — as much, 
perhaps, from refinement of taste as abhorrence of schism 
— he had never yet fallen into such a passion for episco- 
pacy as to feel any cordiality towards the schemes of the 
archbishop. To those who knew him his silence con- 
cerning it was a louder protest against the policy of 


12 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


Laud than the fiercest denunciations of the puritans. 
Once only had he been heard to utter himself unguar- 
dedly in respect of the primate, and that was amongst 
friends, and after the second glass permitted of his cousin 
George. “Tut! laud me no Laud,” he said. “A skip- 
ping bishop is worse than a skipping king.” Once also 
he had been overheard mumuring to himself by way of 
consolement: “ Bishops pass ; the church remains.” He 
had been a great friend of the late Sir Ringwood ; and 
although the distance from his parish was too great to be 
travelled often, he seldom let a year go by without pay 
ing a visit to his friend’s widow and daughter. 

Turning her back on the cenotaph of their former great- 
ness, Dorothy dived into a long pleached alley, careless 
of the drip from overhead, and hurrying through it came 
to a circular patch of thin grass, rounded by a lofty 
hedge of yew-trees, in the midst of which stood what 
had once been a sun-dial. It mattered little, however, 
that only the stump of a gnomon was left, seeing the 
hedge around it had grown to such a height in rela- 
tion to the diameter of the circle, that it was only for 
a very brief hour or so in the middle of a summer’s 
day, when, of all periods, the passage of Time seems 
least to concern humanity, that it could have served to 
measure his march. The spot had, indeed, a time-for- 
saken look, as if it lay buried in the bosom of the past, 
and the present had forgotten it. 

Before emerging from the alley, she slackened her 
pace, half-stopped, and stooping a little in her tucked- 
up skirt, threw a bird-like glance around the opener 
space; then stepping into it, she looked up to the little 
disc of sky, across which the clouds, their roses already 
withered, sailed dim and gray once more, while behind 
them the stars were beginning to recall their half-for- 
gotten message from regions unknown to men. A 


DOROTHY AND RICHARD. 


13 


moment, and she went up to the dial, stood there for 
another moment and was on the point of turning to 
leave the spot, when, as if with one great bound, a youth 
stood between her and the entrance of the alley. 

“Ah ha, Mistress Dorothy, you do not escape me so !” 
he cried, spreading out his arms, as if to turn back some 
runaway creature. 

But Mistress Dorothy was startled, and Mistress 
Dorothy did not choose to be startled, and therefore 
Mistress Dorothy was dignified, if not angry. 

“ I do not like such behavior, Richard,” she said. 
“ It ill suits with the time. Why did you hide behind 
the hedge, and then leap forth so rudely?” 

“ I thought you saw me,” answered the youth. “ Par- 
don my heedlessness, Dorothy. I hope I have not 
startled you too much.” 

As he spoke he stooped over the hand he had caught, 
and would have carried it to his lips, but the girl, half- 
pettishly, snatched it away, and, with a strange mixture 
of dignity, sadness, and annoyance in her tone, said — 

“ There has been something too much of this, Richard, 
and I begin to be ashamed of it.” 

“Ashamed !” echoed the youth. “ Of what ? There is 
nothing but me to be ashamed of, and what can I have 
done since yesterday?” 

“ No, Richard ; I am not ashamed of you, but I am 
ashamed of — of — this way of meeting — and — and ” 

“ Surely that is strange, when we can no more remem- 
ber the day in which we have not met than that in which 
we met first ! No, dear Dorothy ” 

“It is not our meeting, Richard; and if you would but 
think as honestly as you speak, you would not require to 
lay upon me the burden of explanation. It is this foolish 
way we have got into of late — kissing hands — and — and 
always meeting by the old sun-dial, or in some other over- 


i4 ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 

quiet spot. Why do you not come to the house ? My 
mother would give you the same welcome as any time 
these last — how many years, Richard?” 

“ Are you quite sure of that, Dorothy ?” 

“Well — I did fancy she spoke with something more of 
ceremony the last time you met. But, consider, she has 
seen so much less of you of late. Yet I am sure she has 
all but a mother’s love in her heart towards you. For 
your mother was dear to her as her own soul.” 

“ I would it were so, Dorothy ! For then, perhaps, 
your mother would not shrink from being my mother 
too. When we are married, Dorothy ” 

“ Married !” exclaimed the girl. “ — What of marrying 
indeed!” And she turned sideways from him with an 
indignant motion. “Richard,” she went on, after a 
marked and yet but momentary pause, for the youth had 
not had time to say a word, “ it has been very wrong in 
me to meet you after this fashion. I know it now, for 
see what such things lead to ! If you knew it, yofi have 
done me wrong.” 

“Dearest Dorothy!” exclaimed the youth, taking her 
hand again, of which this time she seemed hardly aware, 
“ did you not know from the very vanished first that I 
loved you with all my heart, and that to tell you so 
would have been to tell the sun that he shines warm at 
noon in midsummer ? And I did think yoii had a little 
— something for me, Dorothy, your old playmate, that 
you did not give to every other acquaintance. Think 
of the houses we have built and the caves we have dug 
together — of our rabbits and urchins and pigeons and 
peacocks!” 

“ We are children no longer,” returned Dorothy. “ To 
behave as if we were would be to keep our eyes shut 
after we are awake. I like you, Richard, you know; 
but why this — where is the use of all this — new sort of 


DOROTHY AND RICHARD . 


15 


thing? Come up with me to the house, where Master 
Herbert is now talking to my mother in the large parlor. 
The good man will be glad to see you.” 

“ 1 doubt it, Dorothy. He and thy father, as I am 
given to understand, think so differently in respect of 
affairs now pending betwixt the parliament and the king 
that ” 

“ It were more becoming, Richard, if the door of your 
lips opened to the king first, and let the parliament 
follow.” 

“ Well said !” returned the youth, with a smile. “ But 
let it be my excuse that I speak as I am wont to hear. ” 

The girl's hand had lain quiet in that of the youth, 
but now it started from it like a scared bird. She 
stepped two paces back, and drew herself up. 

“And you, Richard?” she said interrogatively. 

“ What would you ask, Dorothy ?” returned the youth, 
taking a step nearer, to which she responded by another 
backward, ere she replied, 

“ I would know whom you choose to serve — whether 
God or Satan ; whether you are of those who would set 
at naught the laws of the land ” 

“ Insist on their fulfillment, they say, by king as well 
as people,” interrupted Richard. 

“ They would tear their mother in pieces ” 

“Their mother!” repeated Richard, bewildered. 

“ Their mother, the church,” explained Dorothy. 

“Oh!” said Richard. “Nay, they would but cast out 
of her the wolves in sheep’s clothing that devour the 
lambs.” 

The girl was silent. Anger glowed on her forehead 
and flashed from her gray eyes. She stood one moment, 
then turned to leave him, but half turned again to say 
scornfully, 

“ I must go at once to my mother ! I knew not I had 


16 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


left her with such a wolf as Master Herbert is like to 
prove!” 

“Master Herbert is no bishop, Dorothy!” 

“The bishops, then, are the wolves, Master Hey- 
wood?” said the girl with growing indignation. 

“Dear Dorothy, I am but repeating what I hear. For 
my own part I know little of these matters. And what 
are they to us if we love one another?” 

“I tell you I am a child no longer,” flamed Dorothy. 

“You were seventeen last St. George’s Day, and I 
shall be nineteen next St. Michael’s.” 

“St. George for merry England!” cried Dorothy. 

“St. Michael for the Truth!” cried Richard. 

“ So be it. Good-by, then,” said the girl, going. 

“What do you mean, Dorothy?” said Richard, and 
she stood to hear, but with her back towards him, and, 
as it were, hovering midway in a pace. “ Did not St. 
Michael also slay his dragon? Why should the knights 
part company ? Believe me, Dorothy, I care more for a 
smile from you than for all the bishops in the church or 
all the presbyters out of it.” 

“You take needless pains to prove yourself a foolish 
boy, Richard ; and if I go not to my mother at once, I 
fear I shall learn to despise you — which I would not 
willingly.” 

“Despise me! Do you take me for a coward then, 
Dorothy?” 

“ I say not that. I doubt not, for the matter of swords 
and pistols, you are much like other male creatures ; but 
I protest I could never love a man who preferred my 
company to the service of his king.” 

She glided into the alley, and sped along its vaulted 
twilight, her white dress gleaming and clouding by fits 
as she went. 

The youth stood for a moment petrified, then started 


DOROTHY AND RICHARD. 


17 


to overtake her, but stood stock-still at the entrance of 
the alley, and followed her only with his eyes as she 
went. 

When Dorothy reached the house, she did not run up 
to her room that she might weep unseen. She was still 
too much annoyed with Richard to regret having taken 
such leave of him. She only swallowed down a little 
balloonful of sobs, and went straight into the parlor, 
where her mother and Mr. Herbert still sat, and resumed 
her seat in the bay window. Her heightened color, an 
occasional toss of her head backwards, like that with 
which a horse seeks ease from the bearing-rein, generally 
followed by a renewal of the attempt to swallow some- 
thing of upward tendency, were the only signs of her 
discomposure, and none of them were observed by her 
mother or her guest. Could she have known, however, 
what feelings had already begun to rouse themselves in 
the mind of him whose boyishness was an offense to her, 
she would have found it more difficult to keep such 
composure. 

Dorothy's was a face whose forms were already so 
decided that, should no softening influences from the 
central regions gain the ascendency, beyond a doubt 
age must render it hard and unlovely. In all the round- 
ness and freshness of girlhood, it was handsome rather 
than beautiful, beautiful rather than lovely. And yet it 
was strongly attractive, for it bore clear indication of a 
nature to be trusted. If her gray eyes were a little cold, 
they were honest eyes, with a rare look of steadfastness ; 
and if her lips were a little too closely pressed, it was 
clearly from any cause rather than bad temper. Neither 
head, hands, nor feet were small, but they were fine in 
form and movement; and for the rest of her person, tall 
and strong as Richard was, Dorothy looked farther ad- 
vanced in the journey of life than he. 


18 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


She needed hardly, however, have treated his indiffer- 
ence to the politics of the time with so much severity, 
seeing her own acquaintance with and interest in them 
dated from that same afternoon, during which, from lack 
of other employment, and the weariness of a long morn- 
ing of slow, dismal rain, she had been listening to Mr. 
Herbert as he dwelt feelingly on the arrogance of puritan 
encroachment, and the .grossness of presbyterian inso- 
lence both to kingly prerogative and episcopal authority, 
and drew a touching picture of the irritant thwartings 
and pitiful insults to which the gentle monarch was 
exposed in his attempts to support the dignity of his 
divine office, and to cast its protecting skirt over the 
defenseless church; and if it was with less sympathy 
that he spoke of the fears which haunted the captive 
metropolitan, Dorothy at least could detect no hidden 
sarcasm in the tone in which he expressed his hope that 
Laud’s devotion to the beauty of holiness might not 
result in the dignity of martyrdom, as might well be 
feared by those who were assured that the whole guilt of 
Strafford lay in his return to his duty, and his subsequent 
devotion to the interests of his royal master : to all this 
the girl had listened, and her still sufficiently uncertain 
knowledge of the affairs of the nation had, ere the talk 
was over, blossomed in a vague sense of partisanship. It 
was chiefly her desire after the communion of sympathy 
with Richard that had led her into the mistake of such a 
hasty disclosure of her new feelings. 

But her following words had touched him — whether to 
fine issues or not remained yet poised on the knife-edge 
of the balancing will. His first emotion partook of 
anger. As soon as she was out of sight a spell seemed 
broken, and words came. 

“ A boy, indeed, Mistress Dorothy!” he said. “If 
ever it come to what certain persons prophesy, you may 


DOROTHY AND RICHARD . 


19 


wish me in truth, and that for the sake of your precious 
bishops, the boy you call me now. Yes, you are right, 
mistress, though I would it had been another who told 
me so! Boy indeed I am — or have been — without a 
thought in my head but of her. The sound of my 
father’s voice has been but as the wind of the winnowing 
fan. In me it has found but chaff. If you will have me 
take a side, though, you will find me so far worthy of 
you that I shall take the side that seems to me the right 
one, were all the fair Dorothies of the universe on the 
other. In very truth I should be somewhat sorry to find 
the king and the bishops in the right, lest my lady should 
flatter herself and despise me that I had chosen after her 
showing, forsooth ! This is Master Herbert’s doing, for 
never before did I hear her speak after such fashion.” 

While he thus spoke with himself, he stood, like the 
genius of the spot, a still dusky figure on the edge of the 
night, into which his dress of brown velvet, rich and 
somber at once in the sunlight, all but merged. Nearly 
for the first time in his life, he was experiencing the 
difficulty of making up his mind, not, however x upon any 
of the important questions his inattention to which had 
exposed him to such sudden and unexpected severity, 
but merely as to whether he should seek her again in 
the company of her mother and Mr. Herbert, or return 
home. The result of his deliberation, springing partly, 
no doubt, from anger, but that of no very virulent type, 
was, that he turned his back on the alley, passed through 
a small opening in the yew hedge, crossed a neglected 
corner of woodland, by ways better known to him than 
to any one else, and came out upon the main road lead- 
ing to the gates of his father’s park. 


CHAPTER II. 


RICHARD AND HIS FATHER. 

R ICHARD HEYWOOD, as to bodily fashion, was a 
tall and already powerful youth. The clear brown 
of his complexion spoke of plentiful sunshine and air. 
A merry sparkle in the depths of his hazel eyes relieved 
the shadows of rather notably heavy lids, themselves 
heavily overbrowed — with a suggestion of character 
which had not yet asserted itself to those who knew him 
best. Correspondingly, his nose, although of a Greek 
type, was more notable for substance than clearness of 
line or modeling; while his lips had a boyish fullness 
along with a definiteness of bow-like curve, which manly 
resolve had not yet begun to compress and straighten 
out. His chin was at least large enough not to contra- 
dict the promise of his face, his shoulders were square, 
and his chest and limbs well developed : altogether it 
was at present a fair tabernacle — of whatever sort the 
indwelling divinity might yet turn out, fashioning it 
further after his own nature. 

His father and he were the only male descendants of 
an old Monmouthshire family, of neither Welsh nor Nor- 
man but as pure Saxon blood as might be had within 
the clip of the ocean. Roger, the father, had, once only 
or twice in his lifetime, been heard boast, in humorous 
fashion, that, although but a simple squire, he could, on 
this side of the fog of tradition, which nearer or farther 
shrouds all origin, count a longer descent than any uf the 
titled families in the county, not excluding the Earl of 
Worcester himself. His character also would have gone 


RICHARD AND HIS FATHER. 


21 


far to support any assertion he might have chosen to 
make as to the purity of his strain. A notable immobil- 
ity of nature — his friends called it firmness, his enemies 
obstinacy; a seeming disregard of what others might 
think of him; a certain sternness of manner— an un- 
readiness, as it were, to open his door to the people 
about him ; a searching regard with which he was wont 
to peruse the face of any one holding talk with him, 
when he seemed always to give heed to the looks rather 
than the words of him who spoke ; these peculiarities 
had combined to produce a certain awe of him in his in- 
feriors, and a dislike, not unavowed, in his equals. With 
his superiors he came seldom in contact, and to them his 
behavior was still more distant and unbending. But, 
although from these causes he was far from being a 
favorite in the county, he was a man of such known and 
acknowledged probity, that, until of late, when party 
spirit ran high, and drew almost everybody, whether of 
consequence or not, to one side or the other, there was 
nobody who would not have trusted Roger Heywood to 
the uttermost. Even now, foes as well as friends 
acknowledged that he was to be depended upon ; while 
his own son looked up to him with a reverence that in 
some measure overshadowed his affection. Such a char- 
acter as this had necessarily been slow in formation, 
and the opinions which had been modified by it and had 
reacted upon it had been as unalterably as deliberately 
adopted. But affairs had approached a crisis between 
king and parliament before one of his friends knew that 
there were in his mind any opinions upon them in 
process of formation — so reserved and monosyllabic had 
been his share in any conversation upon topics which 
had for a long time being growing every hour of more 
and more absorbing interest to all men either of con- 
sequence, intelligence, property, or adventure. At last, 


22 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


however, it had become clear, to the great annoyance of 
not a few amongst his neighbors, that Heywood’s lean- 
ings were to the parliament. But he had never yet 
sought to influence his son in regard to the great 
questions at issue. 

His house was one of those ancient dwellings which 
have grown under the hands to fit the wants of successive 
generations, and look as if they had never been other 
than old; two-storied at most, and many-gabled, with 
marvelous accretions and projections, the haunts of yet 
more wonderful shadows : there in a room he called his 
study, shabby and small, containing a library more 
notable for quality and selection than size, Richard the 
next morning sought and found him. 

“ Father!” he said, entering with some haste after the 
usual request for admission. 

“ I am here, my son,” answered Roger, without lifting 
his eyes from the small folio in which he was reading. 

“ I want to know, father, whether, when men differ, a 
man is bound to take a side.” 

“ Nay, Richard, but a man is bound not to take a side 
save upon reasons well-considered and found good.” 

“ It may be, father, if you had seen fit to send me to 
Oxford, I should have been better able to judge now.” 

“ I had my reasons, son Richard. Readier, perhaps, 
you might have been, but fitter — no. Tell me what 
points you have in question.” 

“ That I can hardly say, sir. I only know there are 
points at issue betwixt king and parliament which men 
appear to consider of mightiest consequence. Will you 
tell me, father, why you have never instructed me in 
these affairs of church and state? I trust it is not 
because you count me unworthy of your confidence.” 

“ Far from it, my son. My silence hath respect to thy 
hearing and to the judgment yet unawakened in thee. 


RICHARD AND HIS FATHER. 


23 


Who would lay in the arms of a child that which must 
crush him to the earth? Years did I take to meditate 
ere I resolved, and I know not yet if thou hast in thee 
the power of meditation.” 

“At least, father, I could try to understand, if you 
would unfold your mind.” 

“ When you know what the matters at issue are, my 
son — that is, when you are able to ask me questions 
worthy of answer, I shall be ready to answer thee — so 
far as my judgment will reach.” 

“ I thank you, father. In the meantime, I am as one 
who knocks and the door is not opened unto him.” 

“ Rather art thou as one who loiters on the door-step, 
and lifts up neither ring nor voice.” 

“ Surely, sir, I must first know the news.” 

“ Thou hast ears ; keep them open. But at least you 
know, my son, that on the twelfth day of May last my 
lord of Strafford lost his head.” 

“ Who took it from him, sir? King or parliament?” 

“ Even that might be made a question ; but I answer, 
the High Court of Parliament, my son.” 

“Was the judgment a right one or a wrong, sir? Did 
he deserve the doom?” 

“ Ah, there you put a question indeed ! Many men 
say right , and many men say wrong. One man, I doubt 
me much, was wrong in the share he bore therein.” 

“Who was he, sir?” 

“ Nay, nay, I will not forestall thine own judgment. 
But, in good sooth, I might be more ready to speak my 
mind, were it not that I greatly doubt some of those 
who cry loudest for liberty. I fear that had they once 
the power, they would be the first to trample her under 
foot. Liberty with some men means my liberty to do, 
and thine to suffer. But all in good time, my son ! The 
dawn is nigh.” 


24 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


“You will tell me at least, father, what is the bone of 
contention?” 

“ My son, where there is contention, a bone shall not 
fail. It is but a leg-bone now ; it will be a rib to-mor- 
row, and by and by doubtless it will be the skull itself.” 

“If you care for none of these things, sir, will not 
Master Flowerdew have a hard name for you ? I know 
not what it means, but it sounds of the gallows,” said 
Richard, looking rather doubtful as to how his father 
might take it. 

“Possibly, my son, I care more for the contention 
than the bone, for while thieves quarrel honest men go 
their own ways. But what ignorance I have kept thee 
in, and yet left thee to bear the reproach of a puritan !” 
said the father, smiling grimly. ‘ ‘ Thou meanest Master 
Flowerdew would call me a Gallio, and thou takest the 
Roman proconsul for a gallows-bird ! V erily thou art 
not destined to prolong the renown of thy race for let- 
ters. I marvel what thy cousin Thomas would say to 
the darkness of thy ignorance.” 

“ See what comes of not sending me to Oxford, sir : I 
know not who is my cousin Thomas.” 

“ A man both of learning and wisdom, my son, though 
I fear me his diet is too strong for the stomach of this 
degenerate age, while the dressing of his dishes is, on 
the other hand, too cunningly devised for their liking. 
But it is no marvel thou shouldst be ignorant of him, 
being as yet no reader of books. Neither is he a clos& 
kinsman, being of the Lincolnshire branch of the Hey- 
woods.” 

“Now I know whom you mean, sir; but I thought he 
was a writer of stage plays, and such things as on all 
sides I hear called foolish, and mummery.” 

“ There be among those who call themselves the godly, 
who will endure no mummery but of their own invent- 


RICHARD AND HIS RATHER. 


25 


ing. Cousin Thomas hath written a multitude of plays, 
but that he studied at Cambridge, and to good purpose, 
this book, which I was reading when you entered, bears 
good witness.” 

“ What is the book, father?” 

“ Stay, I will read thee a portion. The greater part is 
of learning rather than wisdom — the gathered opinions 
of the wise and good concerning things both high and 
strange, but I will read thee some verses bearing his own 
mind, which is indeed worthy to be set down with 
theirs.” 

He read that wonderful poem ending the second Book 
of the Hierarchy, and having finished it looked at his 
son. 

“I do not understand it, sir,” said Richard. 

“ I did not expect you would,” returned his father. 
“Here, take the book, and read for thyself. If light 
should dawn upon the page as thou readest, perhaps 
thou wilt understand what I now say — that I care but 
little for the bones concerning which king and parliament 
contend, but I do care that men — thou and I, my son — 
should be free to walk in any path whereon it may please 
God to draw us. Take the book, my son, and read 
again. But read no farther save with caution, for it 
dealeth with many things wherein old Thomas is too 
readily satisfied with hearsay for testimony.” 

Richard took the small folio, and carried it to his own 
chamber, where he read and partly understood the poem. 
But he was not ripe enough either in philosophy or 
religion for such meditations. Having executed his task, 
for as such he regarded it, he turned to look through 
the strange mixture of wisdom and credulity composing 
the volume. One tale after another, of witch and demon 
and magician, firmly believed and honestly recorded by 
his worthy relative, drew him on, until he sat forgetful 

B 


26 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


of everything but the world of marvels before him — to 
none of which, however, did he accord a wider credence 
than sprung from the interest of the moment. He was 
roused by a noise of quarrel in the farmyard, towards 
which his window looked, and, laying aside reading, 
hastened out to learn the cause. 


CHAPTER IIP 


THE WITCH. 

I T was a bright autumn morning. A dry wind had 
been blowing all night through the shocks, and already 
some of the farmers had begun to carry to their barns 
the sheaves which had stood hopelessly dripping the day 
before. Ere Richard reached the yard, he saw, over 
the top of the wall, the first load of wheat-sheaves from 
the harvest-field, standing at the door of the barn, and 
high-uplifted thereon the figure of Faithful Stopchase, 
one of the men, a well-known frequenter of puritan 
assemblies all the country round, who was holding forth, 
and that with much freedom, in tones that sounded very 
like vituperation, if not malediction, against some one 
invisible. He soon found that the object of his wrath 
was a certain Welshwoman, named Rees, by her neigh- 
bors considered objectionable on the ground of witch- 
craft, against whom this much could with truth be urged, 
that she was so far from thinking it disreputable, that 
she took no pains to repudiate the imputation of it. 
Her dress, had it been judged by eyes of our day, would 
have been against her, but it was only old-fashioned, not 
even antiquated : common in Queen Elizabeth’s time, it 
lingered still in remote country places — a gown of dark 
stuff, made with a long waist and short skirt over a huge 
farthingale ; a ruff which stuck up and out, high and far, 
from her throat; and a conical Welsh hat invading the 
heavens. Stopchase, having descried her in the yard, 
had taken the opportunity of breaking out upon her in 


28 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


language as far removed from that of conventional polite- 
ness as his puritanical principles would permit. Doubt- 
less he considered it a rebuking of Satan, but forgot that, 
although one of the godly, he could hardly on that 
ground lay claim to larger privilege in the use of bad 
language than the archangel Michael. For the old 
woman, although too prudent to reply, she scorned to 
flee, and stood regarding him fixedly. Richard sought 
to interfere and check the torrent of abuse, but it had 
already gathered so much head, that the man seemed 
even unaware of his attempt. Presently, however, he 
began to quail in the midst of his storming. The green 
eyes of the old woman, fixed upon him, seemed to be 
slowly fascinating him. At length, in the very midst of 
a volley of scriptural epithets, he fell suddenly silent, 
turned from her, and, with the fork on which he had 
been leaning, began to pitch the sheaves into the barn. 
The moment he turned his back, Goody Rees turned 
hers, and walked slowly away. She had scarcely reached 
the yard gate, however, before the cow-boy, a delighted 
spectator and auditor of the affair, had loosed the fierce 
watch-dog, which flew after her. Fortunately Richard 
saw what took place, but the animal, which was gener- 
ally chained up, did not heed his recall, and the poor 
woman had already felt his teeth, when Richard got him 
by the throat. She looked pale and frightened, but kept 
her composure wonderfully, and when Richard, who was 
prejudiced in her favor from having once heard Dorothy 
speak friendlily to her, expressed his great annoyance 
that she should have been so insulted on his father’s 
premises, received his apologies with dignity and good 
faith. He dragged the dog back, rechained him, and 
was in the act of administering sound and righteous 
chastisement to the cow-boy, when Stopchase gave a 
stagger, tumbled off the cart, and, falling upon his head, 


THE WITCH. 


29 


lay motionless. Richard hurried to him, and finding his 
neck twisted and his head bent to one side, concluded 
he was killed. The woman who had accompanied him 
from the field stood for a moment uttering loud cries, 
then, suddenly bethinking herself, sped after the witch. 
Richard was soon satisfied he could do nothing for him. 
Presently the woman came running back, followed at a 
more leisurely pace by Goody Rees, whose countenance 
was grave, and, even to the twitch about her mouth, 
inscrutable. She walked up to where the man lay, 
looked at him for a moment or two as if considering his 
case, then sat down on the ground beside him, and 
requested Richard to move him so that his head should 
lie on her lap. This done, she laid hold of it, with a 
hand on each ear, and pulled at his neck, at the same 
time turning his head in the right direction. There 
came a snap, and the neck was straight. She then began 
to stroke it with a gentle yet firm hand. In a few mo- 
ments he began to breathe. As soon as she saw his 
chest move, she called for a wisp of hay, and having 
shaped it a little, drew herself from under his head, 
substituting the hay. Then rising without a word she 
walked from the yard. Stopchase lay for a while, grad- 
ually coming to himself, then scrambled all at once to 
his feet, and staggered to his pitchfork, which lay where 
it had fallen. “It is of the mercy of the Lord that I fell 
not upon the prongs of the pitchfork,” he said, as he 
slowly stooped and lifted it. He had no notion that he 
had lain more than a few seconds ; and of the return of 
Goody Rees and her ministrations he knew nothing; 
while such an awe of herself and her influences had she 
left behind her that neither the woman nor the cow-boy 
ventured to allude to her, and even Richard, influenced 
partly, no doubt, by late reading, was more inclined to 
think than speak about her. For the man himself, little 


30 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


knowing how close death had come to him, but inwardly 
reproached because of his passionate outbreak, he firmly 
believed that he had had a narrow escape from the net 
of the great fowler, whose decoy the old woman was, 
commissioned not only to cause his bodily death, but 
to work in him first such a frame of mind as should 
render his soul the lawful prey of the enemy. 


CHAPTER IV. 


A CHAPTER OF FOOLS. 


''HE same afternoon, as it happened, a little com- 



X pany of rustics, who had just issued from the low 
hatch-door of the village inn, stood for a moment under 
the sign of the Crown and Mitre, which swung huskily 
creaking from the bough of an ancient thorn tree, then 
passed on to the road, and took their way together. 

“ Hope you then,” said one of them, as continuing 
their previous conversation, “ that we shall escape un- 
hurt? It is a parlous business. Not as one of us is 
afeard as I knows on. But the old earl, he do have a 
most unregenerate temper, and you had better look to’t, 
my masters.” 

“ I tell thee, Master Upstill, it’s not the old earl as I'm 
afeard on, but the young lord. For thou knows as well 
as ere a one it be not without cause that men do call him 
a wizard, for a wizard he be, and that of the worst 


sort.” 


“ We shall be out again afore sundown, shannot we ?” 
said another. “ That I trust.” 

“Up to the which hour, the High Court of Parliament 
assembled will have power to protect its own — eh, John 
Croning ?” 

“ Nay, that I cannot tell. It be a parlous job, and for 
mine own part, whether for the love I bear to the truth, 
or the hatred I cherish toward the scarlet Antichrist, 
with her seven tails ” 

“ Tush, tush, John ! Seven heads, man, and ten horns. 
Those are the numbers' Master Flowerdew read.” 


32 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


“ Nay, I know not for your horns ; but for the rest I 
say seven tails. Did not honest Master Flowerdew set 
forth unto us last meeting that the scarlet woman sat 
upon seven hills — eh? Have with you there, Master 
Sycamore !” 

“ Well, for the sake of sound argument I grant you. 
But we ha’ got to do with no heads nor no tails, neither 
— save and except as you may say the sting is in the 
tail ; and then, or I greatly mistake, it’s not seven times 
seven as will serve to count the stings, come of the tails 
what may.” 

“Very true,” said another; “ it be the stings and not 
the tails we want news of. But think you his lordship 
will yield them up without gainsaying to us the messen- 
gers of the High Parliament now assembled?” 

“For mine own part,” said John Croning, “though I 
fear it come of the old Adam yet left in me, I do count 
it a sorrowful thing that the earl should be such a vile 
recusant. He never fails with a friendly word, or it may 
be a jest, a foolish jest, but honest, for any one gentle or 
simple he may meet. More than once has he boarded 
me in that fashion. What do you think he said to me 
now one day, as I was a mowin’ of the grass in the court, 
close by the white horse, that spout up the water high 
as a house from his nose-drills? Says he to me — for he 
come down the grand staircase, and steps out and spies 
me at the work with my old scythe, and come across to 
me, and says he, ‘ Why, Thomas,’ says he, not knowin’ of 
my name, ‘ Why, Thomas,’ says he, 4 you look like old 
Time himself a mowing of us all down,’ says he. ‘ For 
sure, my lord,’ says I, ‘your lordship reads it aright, for 
all flesh is grass, and all the glory of man is as the flower 
of the field.’ He look humble at that, for, great man as 
he be, his earthly tabernacle, though more than sizable, 
is but a frail one, and that he do know. And says he. 


A CHAPTER OF FOOLS. 


33 


‘Where did you read that, Thomas ?’ ‘Iam not a larned 
man, please your lordship,’ says I, ‘and I cannot honestly 
say I read it nowheres, but I heerd the words from a 
book your lordship have had news of : they do call it the 
Holy Bible. But they tell me that they of your lord- 
ship’s persuasion like it not.’ ‘You are very much 
mistaken there, Thomas,’ says he. ‘I read my bible 
most days, only not the English Bible, which is full of 
errors, but the Latin, which is all as God gave it,’ says 
he. And thereby I had not where to answer withal.” 

“ I fear you proved a poor champion of the truth, 
Master Croning.” 

“ Confess now, Cast-down Upstill, had he not both 
sun and wind of me — standing, so to say, on his own 
hearth-stone ? Had it not been so, I could have called 
hard names with the best of you, though that is by rights 
the gift of the preachers of the truth. See how the good 
Master Flowerdew excelleth therein, sprinkling them 
abroad from the watering-pot of the gospel. Verily, 
when my mind is too feeble to grasp his argument, my 
memory lays fast hold upon the hard names, and while I 
hold by them, I have it all in a nutshell.” 

Fortified occasionally by a pottle of ale, and keeping 
their spirits constantly stirred by much talking, they had 
been all day occupied in searching the catholic houses 
of the neighborhood for arms. What authority they had 
for it never came to be clearly understood. Plainly they 
believed themselves possessed of all that was needful, or 
such men would never have dared it. As it was, they 
prosecuted it with such a bold front, that not until they 
were gone did it occur to some, who had yielded what 
arms they possessed, to question whether they had 
done wisely in acknowledging such fellows as par- 
liamentary officials without demanding their warrant. 
Their day’s gleanings up to this point — of swords and 


34 S 7 GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 

pikes, guns and pistols, they had left in charge of the 
host of the inn whence they had just issued, and were 
now bent on crowning their day’s triumph with a supreme 
act of daring — the renown of which they enlarged in 
their own imaginations, while undermining the courage 
needful for its performance, by enhancing its terrors as 
they went. 

At length two lofty hexagonal towers appeared, and 
the consciousness that the final test of their resolution 
drew nigh took immediate form in a fluttering at the 
heart, which, however, gave no outward sign but that of 
silence ; and indeed they were still too full of the impor- 
tance of unaccustomed authority to fear any contempt 
for it on the part of others. 

It happened that at this moment Raglan Castle was 
full of merry-making upon occasion of the marriage of 
one of Lady Herbert’s waiting-gentlewomen to an officer 
of the household ; and in these festivities the Earl of 
Worcester and all his guests were taking a part. 

Among the numerous members of the household was 
one who, from being a turnspit, had risen, chiefly in 
virtue of an immovably lugubrious expression of coun- 
tenance, to be the earl’s fool. From this peculiarity his 
fellow servants had given him the nickname of The 
Hangman ; but the man himself had chosen the role of a 
puritan parson as affording the best ground-work for the 
display of a humor suitable to the expression of coun- 
tenance with which his mother had endowed him. That 
mother was Goody Rees, concerning whom, as already 
hinted, strange things were whispered. In the earlier 
part of his career the fool had not unfrequently found 
his mother’s reputation a sufficient shelter from persecu- 
tion; and indeed there might have been reason to 
suppose that it was for her son’s sake she encouraged 
her own evil repute, a distinction involving considerable 


A CHAPTER OF FOOLS. 


35 


risk, seeing the time had not yet arrived when the 
disbelief in such powers was sufficiently advanced for 
the safety of those reported to possess them. In her 
turn, however, she ran a risk somewhat less than ordi- 
nary from the fact that her boy was a domestic in the 
family of one whose eldest son, the heir to the earldom, 
lay under a similar suspicion; for not a few of the 
household were far from satisfied that Lord Herbert’s 
known occupations in the Yellow Tower were not prin- 
cipally ostensible, and that he and his man had nothing 
to do with the black art, or some other of the many 
regions of occult science in which the ambition after 
unlawful power may hopefully exercise itself. 

Upon occasion of a family fete, merriment was in 
those days carried further, on the part of both masters 
and servants, than in the greatly altered relations and 
conditions of the present day would be desirable, or 
indeed possible. In this instance, the fun broke out in 
the arranging of a mock marriage between Thomas Rees, 
commonly called Tom Fool, and a young girl who served 
under the cook. Half the jest lay in the contrast 
between the long face of the bridegroom, both con- 
genitally and willfully miserable, and that of the bride, 
broad as a harvest moon, and rosy almost to purple. The 
bridegroom never smiled, and spoke with his jaws rather 
than his lips ; while the bride seldom uttered a syllable 
without grinning from ear to ear, and displaying a mar- 
velous appointment of huge and brilliant teeth. Entering 
solemnly into the joke, Tom expressed himself willing 
to marry the girl, but represented, as an insurmount- 
able difficulty, that he had no clothes for the occasion. 
Thereupon the earl, drawing from his pocket his bunch 
of keys, directed him to go and take what he liked from 
his wardrobe. Now the earl was a man of large circum- 
ference, and the fool as lank in person as in countenance. 


36 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


Tom took the keys and was some time gone, during 
which many conjectures were hazarded as to the style in 
which he would choose to appear. When he re-entered 
the great hall, where the company was assembled, the 
roar of laughter which followed his appearance made 
the glass of its great cupola ring again. For not merely 
was he dressed in the earl’s beaver hat and satin cloak, 
splendid with plush, and gold and silver lace, but he had 
indued a corresponding suit of his clothes as well, even 
to his silk stockings, garters, and roses, and, with the 
help of many pillows and other such farcing, so filled 
the garments which otherwise had hung upon him like a 
shawl from a peg, and made of himself such a “ sweet 
creature of bombast” that, with ludicrous unlikeness of 
countenance, he bore in figure no distant resemblance to 
the earl himself. 

Meantime Lady Elizabeth had been busy with the 
scullery-maid, whom she had attired in a splendid 
brocade of her grandmother’s, with all suitable belong- 
ings of ruff, high collar, and lace wings, such as Queen 
Elizabeth is represented with in Oliver’s portrait. Upon 
her appearance, a few minutes after Tom’s, the laughter 
broke out afresh, in redoubled peals, and the merriment 
was at its height, when the warder of one of the gates 
entered and whispered in his master’s ear the arrival of 
the bumpkins, and their mission, announced, he informed 
his lordship, with all the importance and dignity they 
knew how to assume. The earl burst into a fresh laugh. 
But presently it quavered a little and ceased, while over 
the amusement still beaming on his countenance gath- 
ered a slight shade of anxiety — for who could tell what 
tempest such a mere whirling of straws might not fore- 
run ? 

A few words of the warder’s had reached Tom where 
he stood a little aside, his solemn countenance radiating 


A CHAPTER OF FOOLS. 37 

disapproval of the tumultuous folly around him. He 
took three strides towards the earl. 

“ Wherein lieth the new jest ?” he asked with dignity. 

“ A set of country louts, my lord,” answered the earl, 
“are at the gate, affirming the right of search in this 
your lordship’s house of Raglan.” 

“ For what?” 

“Arms, my lord.” 

“And wherefore ? On what ground?” 

“ On the ground that your lordship is a vile recusant 
- — a papist, and therefore a traitor, no doubt, although 
they use not the word,” said the earl. 

“ I shall be round with them,” said Tom, embracing 
the assumed proportions in front of him, and turning to 
the door. 

Ere the earl had time to conceive his intent he had 
hurried from the hall, followed by fresh shouts of laugh- 
ter. For he had forgotten to stuff himself behind, and 
when the company caught sight of his back as he strode 
out, the tenuity of the foundation for such a “ huge hill 
of flesh” was absurd as Falstaff’s ha’p’orth of bread to 
the “intolerable deal of sack.” 

But the next moment the earl had caught the intended 
joke, and although a trifle concerned about the affair, 
was of too mirthloving a nature to interfere with Tom’s 
project, the result of which would doubtless be highly 
satisfactory — at least to those not primarily concerned. 
He instantly called for silence, and explained to the 
assembly what he believed to be Tom Fool’s intent, and 
as there was nothing to be seen from the hall, the win- 
dows of which were at a great height from the floor, and 
Tom’s scheme would be fatally imperiled by the visible 
presence of spectators, from some at least of whom 
gravity of demeanor could not be expected, gave hasty 
instructions to several of his sons and daughters to 


38 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


disperse the company to upper windows having a view 
of one or the other court, for no one could tell where 
the fool’s humor might find its principal arena. The 
next moment, in the plain dress of rough brownish cloth 
which he always wore except upon state occasions, he 
followed the fool to the gate, where he found him talking 
through the wicket-grating to the rustics, who having 
passed drawbridge and portcullises, of which neither the 
former had been raised nor the latter lowered for many 
years, now stood on the other side of the gate demanding 
admittance. In the parley Tom Fool was imitating his 
master’s voice and every one of the peculiarities of his 
speech to perfection, addressing them with extreme 
courtesy, as if he took them for gentlemen of no ordinary 
consideration, — a point in his conception of his part 
which he never forgot throughout the whole business. 
To the dismay of his master he was even more than 
admitting, almost boasting that there was an enormous 
quantity of weapons in the castle — sufficient at least to 
arm ten thousand horsemen ! — a prodigious statement, 
for, at the uttermost, there were not more than the tenth 
part of that amount — still a somewhat larger provision 
no doubt than the intruders had expected to find ! The 
pseudo-earl went on to say that the armory consisted of 
one strong room only, the door of which was so cun- 
ningly concealed and secured that no one but himself 
knew where it was, or if found could open it. But such 
he said, was his respect to the will of the most august 
parliament, that he would himself conduct them to the 
said armory, and deliver over upon the spot into their 
safe custody the whole mass of weapons to carry away 
with them. And thereupon he proceeded to open the 
gate. 

By this time the door of the neighboring guard-room 
was crowded with the heads of eager listeners, but the 


A CHAPTER OF FOOLS. 


39 


presence of the earl kept them quiet, and at a sign from 
him they drew back ere the men entered. The earl 
himself took a position where he would be covered by 
the opening wicket. 

Tom received them into bodily presence with the 
notification that, having suspected their object, he had 
sent all his people out of the way, in order to avoid the 
least danger of a broil. Bowing to them with the utmost 
politeness as they entered, he requested them to step 
forward into the court while he closed the wicket behind 
them, but took the opportunity of whispering to one of 
the men just inside the door of the guard-house, who, the 
moment Tom had led the rustics away, approached the 
earl, and told him what he had said. 

“ What can the rascal mean ?” said the earl to himself; 
but he told the man to carry the fool’s message exactly 
as he had received it, and quietly followed Tom and his 
companions, some of whom, conceiving fresh importance 
from the overstrained politeness with which they had 
been received, were now attempting a transformation of 
their usual loundering gait into a martial stride, with the 
result of a foolish strut, very unlike the dignified prog- 
ress of the sham earl, whose weak back roused in them 
no suspicion, and who had taken good care they should 
not see his face. Across the paved court, and through 
the hall to the inner court, Tom led them, and the earl 
followed. 

The twilight was falling. The hall was empty of life, 
and filled with a somber dusk, echoing to every step as 
they passed through it. They did not see the flash of 
eyes and glimmer of smiles from the minstrel’s gallery, 
and the solitude, size, and gloom had, even on their dull 
natures, a palpable influence. The whole castle seemed 
deserted as they followed the false earl across the second 
court — with the true one stealing after them like a knave 


40 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


— little imagining that bright eyes were watching them 
from the curtains of every window like stars from the 
clear spaces and cloudy edges of heaven. To the north- 
west corner of the court he led them, and through a 
sculptured doorway up the straight wide ascent of stone 
called the grand staircase. At the top he turned to the 
right, along a dim corridor, from which he entered a 
suite of bedrooms and dressing rooms, over whose black 
floors he led the tramping hob-nailed shoes without pity 
either for their polish or the labor of the house-maids in 
restoring it. 

In this way he reached the stair in the bell-tower, 
ascending which he brought them into a narrow dark 
passage ending again in a downward stair, at the foot of 
which they found themselves in the long picture-gallery, 
having entered it in the recess of one of its large win- 
dows. At the other end of the gallery he crossed into 
the dining-room, then through an ante-chamber entered 
the drawing-room, where the ladies, apprised of their 
approach, kept still behind curtains and high chairs, 
until they had passed through, on their way to cross the 
archway of the main entrance, and through the library 
gain the region of household economy and cookery. 
Thither I will not drag my reader after them. Indeed 
the earl, who had been dogging them like a Fate, ever 
emerging on their track but never beheld, had already 
begun to pay his part of the penalty of the joke in 
fatigue, for he was not only unwieldy in person, but far 
from robust, being very subject to gout. He owed his 
good spirits to a noble nature, and not to animal well- 
being. When they crossed from the picture-gallery to 
the dining-room, he went down the stair between, and 
into the oak-parlor adjoining the great hall. There he 
threw himself into an easy chair which always stood for 
him in the great bay window, looking over the moat to 


A CHAPTER OF FOOLS. 


41 


the huge keep of the castle, and commanding through its 
western light the stone bridge which crossed it. There 
he lay back at his ease, and, instructed by the message 
Tom had committed to the sergeant of the guard, waited 
the result. 

As for his double, he went stalking on in front of his 
victims, never turning to show his face : he knew they 
would follow, were it but for the fear of being left alone. 
Close behind him they kept, scarce daring to whisper 
from growing awe of the vast place. The fumes of the 
beer had by this time evaporated, and the heavy obscur- 
ity which pervaded the whole building enhanced their 
growing apprehensions. On and on the fool led them, up 
and down, going and returning, but ever in new tracks, 
for the marvelous old place was interminably burrowed 
with connecting passages and communications of every 
sort — some of them the merest ducts which had to be 
all but crept through, and which would have certainly 
arrested the progress of the earl, had he followed so far : 
no one about the place understood its “ crenkles” so well 
as Tom. For the greater part of an hour he led them 
thus, until, having been on their legs the whole day, they 
were thoroughly wearied as well as awe-struck. At 
length, in a gloomy chamber, where one could not see 
the face of another, the pseudo-earl turned full upon 
them, and said in his most solemn tones : 

“ Arrived thus far, my masters, it is borne in upon me 
with rebuke, that before undertaking to guide you to the 
armory, I should have acquainted you with the strange 
fact, that at times I am myself unable to find the place 
of which we are in search ; and I begin to fear it is so 
now, and that we are at this moment the sport of a cer- 
tain member of my family of whom it may be your 
worships have heard things not more strange than true. 
Against his machinations I am powerless. All that is 


42 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


left us is to go to him and entreat him to unsay his 
spells.” 

A confused murmur of objections arose. 

“ Then your worships will remain here while I go to 
the Yellow Tower, and come to you again?” said the 
mock earl, making as if he would leave them. 

But they crowded round him with earnest refusals to 
be abandoned ; for in their very souls they felt the fact 
that they were upon enchanted ground — and in the 
dark. 

“ Then follow me,” he said, and conducted them into 
the open air of the inner court, almost opposite the 
archway in i,ts buildings leading to the stone bridge, 
whose gothic structure bestrid the moat of the keep. 

For Raglan Castle had this peculiarity, that its keep 
was surrounded by a moat of its own, separating it from 
the rest of the castle, so that save by bridge no one 
within any more than without the walls could reach it. 
On to the bridge Tom led the way, followed by his dupes 
• — now full in the view of the earl where he sat in his 
parlor window. When they had reached the center of 
it, however, and, glancing up at the awful bulk of stone 
towering above them, its walls strangely dented and 
furrowed, so as, to such as they, might well suggest 
frightful means to wicked ends, they stood stock still, 
refusing to go a step further, while their chief speaker, 
Upstill, emboldened by anger, fear, and the meek be- 
havior of the supposed earl, broke out in a torrent of 
arrogance, wherein his intention was to brandish the 
terrors of the high parliament over the heads of his lord- 
ship of Worcester and all recusants. He had not got 
far, however, before a shrill whistle pierced the air, and 
the next instant arose a chaos of horrible, appalling, and 
harrowing noises, “such a roaring,” in the words of their 
own report of the matter to the Reverend Master Flower- 


A CHAPTER OF FOOLS. 


43 


dew, “ as if the mouth of hell had been wide open, and 
all the devils conjured up,” — doubtless they meant by 
the arts of the wizard whose dwelling was that same 
tower of fearful fame before which they now stood. 
The skin-contracting chill of terror uplifted their hair. 
The mystery that enveloped the origin of the sounds 
gave them an unearthliness which froze the very foun- 
tains of their life, and rendered them incapable even of 
motion. They stared at each other with a ghastly ob- 
servance, which descried no comfort, only like images of 
horror. “Man’s hand is not able to taste” how long 
they might have thus stood, nor “his tongue to conceive” 
what the consequences might have been, had not a more 
healthy terror presently supervened. Across the tumult 
of sounds, like a fiercer flash through the flames of a 
furnace, shot a hideous, long-drawn yell, and the same 
instant came a man running at full speed through the 
archway from the court, casting terror-stricken glances 
behind him, and shouting with a voice half-choked to a 
shriek, 

“Look to yourselves, my masters; the lions are got 
loose.” 

All the world knew that ever since King James had 
set the fashion by taking so much pleasure in the lions 
at the Tower, strange beasts had been kept in the castle 
of Raglan. 

The new terror broke the spell of the old, and the 
parliamentary commissioners fled. But which was the 
way from the castle ? which the path to the lions’ den ? 
In an agony of horrible dread, they rushed hither and 
thither about the court, where now the white horse, as 
steady as marble should be when first they crossed it, 
was, to their excited vision, prancing wildly about the 
great basin from whose charmed circle he could not 
break, foaming at the mouth, and casting huge water-jets 


44 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


from his nostrils into the perturbed air ; while from the 
surface of the moat a great column of water shot up 
nearly as high as the citadel, whose return into the moat 
was like a tempest, and with all the elemental tumult was 
mingled the howling of wild beasts. The doors of the 
hall and the gates to the bowling green being shut, the 
poor wretches could not find their way out of the court, 
but ran from door to door like madmen, only to find all 
closed against them. From every window around the 
court — from the apartments of the waiting gentlewomen, 
from the picture-gallery, from the officers’ rooms, eager 
and merry eyes looked down on the spot, themselves 
unseen and unsuspected, for all voices were hushed, and 
for anything the bumpkins heard or saw they might have 
been in a place deserted of men, and possessed only by 
evil spirits, whose pranks were now tormenting them. 
At last Upstill, who had fallen on the bridge at his first 
start, and had ever since been rushing about with a limp 
and a leap alternated, managed to open the door of the 
hall, and its eastern door having been left open, shot 
across and into the outer court, where he made for the 
gate, followed at varied distance by the rest of the routed 
commissioners of search, as each had discovered the way 
his forerunner fled. With trembling hands Upstill raised 
the latch of the wicket, and to his delight found it un- 
locked. He darted through, passed the twin portcul- 
lises, and was presently thundering over the drawbridge, 
which, trembling under his heavy steps, seemed on the 
point of rising to heave him back into the jaws of the 
lions, or, worse still, the clutches of the enchanter. Not 
one looked behind him, not even when, having passed 
through the white stone gate, also purposely left open 
for their escape, and rattled down the multitude of steps 
that told how deep was the moat they had just crossed, 
where the last of them nearly broke his neck by rolling 


A CHAPTER OF FOOLS. 


45 


almost from top to bottom, they reached the outermost, 
the brick gate, and so left the awful region of enchant- 
ment and feline fury commingled. Not until the castle 
was out of sight, and their leader had sunk senseless on 
the turf by the roadside, did they dare a backward look. 
The moment he came to himself they started again for 
home, at what poor speed they could make, and reached 
the Crown and Miter in sad plight, where, however, they 
found some compensation in the pleasure of setting forth 
their adventures — with the heroic manner in which, 
although vanquished by the irresistible force of enchant- 
ment, they had yet brought off their forces without the 
loss of a single man. Their story spread over the coun- 
try, enlarged and embellished at every fresh stage in its 
progress. 

When the tale reached Mother Rees, it filled her with 
fresh awe of the great magician, the renowned Lord 
Herbert. She little thought the whole affair was a jest 
of her own son’s. Firmly believing in all kinds of magic 
and witchcraft, but as innocent of conscious dealing 
with the powers of ill as the whitest-winged angel be- 
twixt earth’s garret and heaven’s threshold, she owed 
her evil repute amongst her neighbors to a rare therapeu- 
tic faculty, accompanied by a keen sympathetic instinct 
which greatly sharpened her powers of observation in 
the quest after what was amiss ; while her touch was so 
delicate, so informed with present mind, and came there- 
fore into such rapport with any living organism the 
secret of whose suffering it sought to discover, that 
sprained muscles, dislocated joints, and broken bones 
seemed at its soft approach to re-arrange their disturbed 
parts, and yield to the power of her composing will as to 
a re-ordering harmony. Add to this that she understood 
more of the virtues of some herbs than any doctor in the 
parish, which, in the condition of general practice at the 


46 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


time, is not perhaps to say much, and that she firmly 
believed in the might of certain charms and occasionally 
used them, and I have given reason enough why, while 
regarded by all with disapprobation, she should be by 
many both courted and feared. For her own part she 
had a leaning to the puritans, chiefly from respect to the 
memory of a good-hearted, weak, but intellectually gifted 
and therefore admired husband; but the ridicule of her 
yet more gifted son had a good deal shaken this predi- 
lection, so that she now spent what powers of discrim- 
ination and choice she possessed solely upon persons, 
heedless of principles in themselves, and regarding them 
only in their vital results. Hence it was a matter of 
absolute indifference to her which of the parties now 
dividing the country was in the right, or which should 
lose, which win, provided no personal evil befell the men 
or women for whom she cherished a preference. Like 
many another, she was hardly aware of the jurisdiction 
of conscience save in respect of immediate personal 
relations. 


CHAPTER V. 


ANIMADVERSIONS. 

F ROM the time when the conversation recorded had 
in some measure dispelled the fog between them, 
Roger and Richard Heywood drew rapidly nearer to 
each other. The father had been but waiting until his 
son should begin to ask him questions, for watchfulness 
of himself and others had taught him how useless infor- 
mation is to those who have not first desired it, how 
poor in influence, how soon forgotten ; and now that the 
fitting condition had presented itself, he was ready : with 
less of reserve than in the relation between them was 
common amongst the puritans, he began to pour his very 
soul into that of his son. All his influence went with 
that party which, holding that the natural flow of the 
reformation of the church from popery had stagnated in 
episcopacy, consisted chiefly of those who, in demanding 
the overthrow of that form of church government, sought 
to substitute for it what they called presbyterianism ; but 
Mr. Heywood belonged to another division of it which, 
although less influential at present, was destined to come 
by and by to the front in the strength of the conviction 
that to stop with presbyterianism was merely to change 
the name of the swamp — a party whose distinctive and 
animating spirit was the love of freedom, which indeed, 
degenerating into a passion among its inferior members, 
broke out, upon occasion, in the wildest vagaries of 
speech and doctrine, but on the other hand justified 
itself in its leaders, chief amongst whom were Milton and 


48 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


Cromwell, inasmuch as they accorded to the consciences 
of others the freedom they demanded for their own — the 
love of liberty with them not meaning merely the love of 
enjoying freedom, but that respect for the thing itself 
which renders a man incapable of violating it in another. 
Roger Heywood was, in fact, already a pupil of Milton, 
whose anonymous pamphlet of “ Reformation touching 
Church Discipline” had already reached him, and opened 
with him the way for all his following works. 

Richard, with whom my story has really to do, but for 
the understanding of whom it is necessary that the char- 
acter and mental position of his father should in some 
measure be set forth, proved an apt pupil, and was soon 
possessed with such a passion for justice and liberty, as 
embodied in the political doctrines now presented for his 
acceptance, that it was impossible for him to understand 
how any honest man could be of a different mind. No 
youth, indeed, of simple and noble nature, as yet unmar- 
red by any dominant phase of selfishness, could have 
failed to catch fire from the enthusiasm of such a father, 
an enthusiam glowing yet restrained, wherein party spirit 
had a less share than principle — which, in relation to 
such a time, is to say much. Richard’s heart swelled 
within him at the vistas of grandeur opened by his 
father’s words, and swelled yet higher when he read to 
him passages from the pamphlet to which I have referred. 
It seemed to him, as to most young people under mental 
excitement, that he had but to tell the facts of the case 
to draw all men to his side, enlisting them in the army 
destined to sweep every form of tyranny, and especially 
spiritual usurpation and arrogance, from the face of the 
earth. 

Being one who took everybody at the spoken word, 
Richard never thought of seeking Dorothy again at their 
former place of meeting. Nor, in the new enthusiasm 


ANIMAD VERSIONS. 


49 


born in him, did his thoughts for a good many days turn 
to her so often or dwell so much upon her, as to cause 
any keen sense of their separation. The flood of new 
thoughts and feelings had transported him beyond the 
ignorant present. In truth, also, he was a little angry 
with Dorothy for showing a foolish preference for the 
church party, so plainly in the wrong was it ! And what 
could she know about the question by his indifference to 
which she had been so scandalized, but to which he had 
been indifferent only until rightly informed thereon ! If 
he had ever given her just cause to think him childish, 
certainly she should never apply the word to him again ! 
If he could but see her, he would soon convince her — 
indeed he must see her — for the truth was not his to 
keep, but to share! It was his duty to acquaint her 
with the fact that the parliament was the army of God, 
fighting the great red dragon, one of whose seven heads 
was prelacy, the horn upon it the king, and Laud its 
crown. He wanted a stroll — he would take the path 
through the woods and the shrubbery to the old sun- 
dial. She would not be there, of course, but he would 
walk up the pleached alley, and call at the house. 

Reasoning thus within himself one day, he rose and 
went. But as he approached the wood, Dorothy’s great 
mastiff, which she had reared from a pup with her own 
hand, came leaping out to welcome him, and he was 
prepared to find her not far off. 

When he entered the yew-circle, there she stood lean- 
ing on the dial as if, like old Time, she too had gone to 
sleep there and was dreaming ancient dreams over again. 
She did not move at the first sounds of his approach, and 
when at length, as he stood silent by her side, she lifted 
her head, but without looking at him, he saw the traces 
of tears on her cheeks. The heart of the youth smote 
him. 

c 


50 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


“Weeping, Dorothy?” he said. 

“Yes,” she answered simply. 

ei I trust I am not the cause of your trouble, Doro- 
thy.” 

“You!” returned the girl quickly, and the color 
rushed to her pale cheeks. 4 No, indeed. How should 
you trouble me ? My mother is ill.” 

Considering his age, Richard was not much given to 
vanity, and it was something better that prevented him 
from feeling pleased at being thus exonerated : she 
looked so sweet and sad that the love which new 
interests had placed in abeyance returned in full tide. 
Even when a child he had scarcely ever seen her in 
tears ; it was to him a new aspect of her being. 

“Dear Dorothy!” he said, “I am very much grieved 
to learn this of your beautiful mother.” 

“ She is beautiful,” responded the girl, and her voice 
was softer than he had ever heard it before ; “ but she 
will die, and I shall be left alone.” 

“No, Dorothy! that you shall never be!” exclaimed 
Richard, with a confidence bordering on presumption. 

“ Master Herbert is with her now,” resumed Dorothy, 
heedless of his words. 

“You do not mean her life is even now in danger?” 
said Richard, in a tone of sudden awe. 

“ I hope not, but, indeed, I cannot tell. I left Master 
Herbert comforting her with the assurance that she was 
taken away from the evil to come. ‘And I trust, 
madam,’ the dear old man went on to say, ‘ that my 
departure will not long be delayed, for darkness will 
cover the earth, and gross darkness the people.’ Those 
were his very words.” 

“ Nay, nay!” said Richard, hastily; “the good man is 
deceived; the people that sit in darkness shall see 3 
great light.” 


ANIMAD VERSIONS. 


5 i 


The girl looked at him with strange interrogation. 

“ Do not be angry, sweet Dorothy,” Richard went on. 
“ Old men may mistake as well as youths. As for the 
realm of England, the sun of righteousness will speedily 
arise thereon, for the dawn draws nigh; and Master 
Herbert may be just as far deceived concerning your 
mother’s condition, for she has been but sickly for a 
long time, and yet has survived many winters.” 

Dorothy looked at him still, and was silent. At length 
she spoke, and her words came slowly and with weight. 

“ And what prophet’s mantle, if I may make so bold, 
has fallen upon Richard Heywood, that the word in his 
mouth should outweigh that of an aged servant of the 
church? Can it be that the great light of which he 
speaks is Richard Heywood himself?” 

“As Master Herbert is a good man and a servant of 
God,” said Richard, coldly, stung by her sarcasm, but 
not choosing to reply to it, “his word weighs mightily; 
but as a servant of the church his word is no weightier 
than my father’s, who is also a minister of the true 
tabernacle, that wherein all who are kings over them- 
selves are priests unto God — though truly he pretends to 
no prophecy beyond the understanding of the signs of 
the times.” 

Dorothy saw that a wonderful change, such as had 
been incredible upon any but the witness of her own 
eyes and ears, had passed on her old playmate. He was 
in truth a boy no longer. Their relative position was 
no more what she had been of late accustomed to con- 
sider it. But with the change a gulf had begun to yawn 
between them. 

“Alas, Richard!” she said, mistaking what he meant 
by the signs of the times, “ those who arrogate the gift of 
the Holy Ghost, while their sole inspiration is the pre- 
sumption of their own hearts and an overweening con- 


52 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


tempt of authority, may well mistake signs of their own 
causing for signs from heaven. I but repeat the very 
words of good Master Herbert.” 

“I thought such swelling words hardly sounded like 
your own, Dorothy. But tell me, why should the per- 
suasion of man or woman hang upon the words of a 
fellow mortal? Is not the gift of the Spirit free to each 
who asks it? And are we not told that each must be 
fully persuaded in his own mind ?” 

“ Nay, Richard, now I have thee ! Hang you not by 
the word of your father, who is one, and despise the 
authority of the true church, which is many ?” 

“ The true church were indeed an authority, but where 
shall we find it? Anyhow, the true church is one thing, 
and prelatical episcopacy another. But I have yet to 
learn what authority even the true church could have 
over a man’s conscience.” 

“You need to be reminded, Richard, that the Lord of 
the church gave power to his apostles to bind or loose.” 

“ I do not need to be so reminded, Dorothy, but I do 
need to be shown first that that power was over men’s 
consciences; and, second, that it was transmitted to 
others by the apostles — waiving the question as to the 
doubtful ordination of English prelates.” 

Fire flashed from Dorothy’s eyes. 

“Richard Heywood,” she said, “the demon of spir- 
itual pride has already entered into you, and blown you 
up with a self-sufficiency which I never saw in you 
before, or I would never, never have companied with 
you, as I am now ashamed to think I have done so long, 
even to the danger of my soul’s health.” 

“ In that case I may comfort myself, Mistress Dorothy 
Vaughan,” said Richard, “that you will no longer count 
me a boy! But do you then no longer desire that I 
should take one part or the other, and show myself a 


ANIMAD VERSIONS. 


53 


man ? Am I man enough yet for the woman thou art, 
Dorothy? — But, Dorothy,” he added, with sudden change 
of tone, for she had in anger turned to leave him, “I 
love you dearly, and I am truly sorry if I have spoken so 
as to offend you. I came hither eager to share with you 
the great things I have learned since you left me with 
just contempt a fortnight ago.” 

“ Then it is I whose foolish words have cast you into 
the seat of the scorner i Alas ! alas ! my poor Richard ! 
Never, never more, while you thus rebel against author- 
ity and revile sacred things, will I hold counsel with you.” 

And again she turned to go. 

“Dorothy!” cried the youth, turning pale with agony 
to find on the brink of what an abyss of loss his zeal had 
set him, “ wilt thou, then, never speak to me more, and 1 
love thee as the daylight?” 

“Never more till thou repent and turn. I will but 
give thee one piece of counsel, and then leave thee — if 
for ever, that rests with thee. There has lately appeared, 
like the frog out of the mouth of the dragon, a certain 
tractate or treatise, small in bulk, but large with the wind 
of evil doctrine. Doubtless it will reach your father’s 
house ere long, if it be not, as is more likely, already 
there, for it is the vile work of one they call a puritan, 
though where even the writer can vainly imagine the 
purity of such work to lie, let the pamphlet itself raise 
the question. Read the evil thing — or, I will not say 
read it, but glance the eye over it. It is styled ‘Animad- 
versions upon .’ Truly I cannot recall the long- 

drawn title. It is filled, even as a toad with poison, so 
full of evil and scurrilous sayings against good men, 
rating and abusing them as the very off-scouring of the 
earth, that you cannot yet be so far gone in evil as not 
to be reclaimed by seeing whither such men and their 
inspiration would lead you. Farewell, Richard.” 


54 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


With the words, and without a look, Dorothy, who 
had been standing sideways in act to go, swept up the 
pleached alley, her step so stately and her head so high 
that Richard, slowly as she walked away, dared not 
follow her, but stood “like one forbid.” When she had 
vanished, and the light shone in full at the far end, he 
gave a great sigh and turned away, and the old dial was 
forsaken. 

The scrap of title Dorothy had given was enough to 
enable Richard to recognize the pamphlet as one a copy 
of which his father had received only a few days before, 
and over the reading of which they had again and again 
laughed unrestrainedly. As he walked home he sought 
in vain to recall anything in it deserving of such repro- 
bation as Dorothy had branded it withal. Had it been 
written on the other side no search would have been 
necessary, for party spirit (from which how could such a 
youth be free, when the greatest men of his time were 
deeply tainted with it?), while it blinds the eyes in one 
direction, makes them doubly keen in another. As it 
was, the abuse in the pamphlet referred to appeared to 
him only warrantable indignation ; and, the arrogance of 
an imperfect love leading him to utter desertion of his 
newly-adopted principles, he scorned as presumptuous 
that exercise of her own judgment on the part of Doro- 
thy which had led to their separation, bitterly resenting 
the change in his playmate, who, now an angry woman, 
had decreed his degradation from the commonest privi- 
leges of friendship, until such time as he should abjure 
his convictions, become a renegade to the truth, and 
abandon the hope of resulting freedom which the strife 
of parties held out — an act of tyranny the reflection 
upon which raised such a swelling in his throat as he 
had never felt but once before, when a favorite foal got 
staked in trying to clear a fence. Having neither friend 


ANIMAD VERSIONS. 


55 


nor sister to whom to confess that he was in trouble — 
have confided it he could not in any case, seeing it 
involved blame of the woman his love for whom now 
first, when on the point of losing her forever, threatened 
to overmaster him — he wandered to the stables, which 
he found empty of men and nearly so of horses, half- 
involuntarily sought the stall of the mare his father had 
given him on his last birthday, laid his head on the neck 
bent round to greet him, and sighed a sore response to 
her soft, low, tremulous whinny. 

As he stood thus, overcome by the bitter sense of 
wrong from the one he loved best in the world, some- 
thing darkened the stable-door, and a voice he knew 
reached his ear. Mistaking the head she saw across an 
empty stall for that of one of the farm-servants, Goody 
Rees was calling aloud to know if he wanted a charm for 
the toothache. 

Richard looked up. 

“And what may your charm be, Mistress Rees?” he 
asked. 

“Aha! is it thou, young master?” returned the woman. 
“Thou wilt marvel to see me about the place so soon 
again, but verily I desired to know how that godly man, 
Faithful Stopchase, found himself after his fall.” 

“Nay, Mistress Rees, make no apology for coming 
amongst thy friends. I warrant thee against further 
rudeness of man or beast. I have taken them to task, 
and truly I will break his head who wags tongue against 
thee. As for Stopchase, he does well enough in all 
except owing thee thanks which he declines to pay. 
But for thy charm, good Mistress Rees, what is it — tell 
me?” 

She took a step inside the door, sent her small eyes 
peering first into every corner her sight could reach, and 
then said : 


56 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


“ Are we alone — we two, Master Richard ? 

“ There’s a cat in the next stall, mistress : if she can 
hear, she can’t speak.” 

“ Don’t be too sure of that, Master Richard. Be there 
no one else?” 

“Not a body — soul there may be — who knows?” 

“I know there is none. I will tell thee my charm, or 
what else I may that thou would wish to know ; for he is 
a true gentleman who will help a woman because she is 
a woman, be she as old and ugly as Goody Rees herself. 
Hearken, my pretty sir: it is the tooth of a corpse, 
drawn after he hath lain a se’en-night in the mould: 
wilt buy, my master ? Or did not I see thee now asking 
comfort from thy horse for the ” 

She paused a moment, peered narrowly at him from 
under lowered eyebrows, and went on : 

“ heartache, eh, Master Richard? Old eyes can 

see through velvet doublets.” 

“All the world knows yours can see farther than other 
people’s,” returned Richard. “Heaven knows whence 
they have their sharpness. But suppose it were a heartr 
ache now, have you got e’er a charm to cure that?” 

“ The best of all charms, my young master, is a kiss 
from the maiden — and what would thou give me for the 
spell that should set her by thy side at the old dial, 
under a warm harvest moon, all the long hours ’twixfc 
midnight and the crowing of the black cock — eh, my 
master? What wilt thou give me?” 

“Not a brass farthing, if she came not of her own 
good will,” murmured Richard, turning towards his mare. 
“ But come, Mistress Rees, you know you couldn’t do it, 
even if you were the black witch the neighbors would 
have you — though I, for my part, will not hear a word 
against you — never since you set my poor old dog upon 
his legs again — though to be sure he will die one of 


A NIMA D VERSIONS. 57 

these days, and that no one can help-^dogs have such 
short lives, poor fools*” 

“Thou knows not what old Mother Rees can do. 
Tell me, young master, did she ever say and not do — eh, 
now?” 

“You said you would cure my dog, and you did,” 
answered Richard. 

“And I say now, if thou will, I will set thee and her 
together by the old dial to-morrow night, and it shall be 
a warm and moonlit night on purpose for ye, an ye will.” 

“ It were to no good purpose, Mistress Rees, for we 
parted this day — and that for ever, I much fear me,” said 
Richard with a deep sigh, but getting some little comfort 
even out of a witch’s sympathy. 

“Tut, tut, tut! Lovers’ quarrels! Who knows not 
what they mean ? Crying and kissing — crying and kiss- 
ing — that’s what they mean. Come now — what did thou 
and she quarrel about ?” 

The old woman, if not a witch, at least looked very 
like one, with her two hands resting on the wide round 
ledge of her farthingale, her head thrown back, and, 
from under her peaked hat that pointed away behind, 
her two greenish eyes peering with a half-coaxing, yet 
sharp and probing gaze into those of the youth. 

But how could he make a confidante of one like her ? 
What could she understand of such questions as had 
raised the wall of partition betwixt him and Dorothy? 
Unwilling to offend her, however, he hesitated to give 
her offer a plain refusal, and turning away in silence, 
affected to have caught sight of something suspicious 
about his mare’s near hock. 

“I see, I see!” said the old woman grimly, but not 
ill-naturedly, and nodded her head, so that her hat 
described great arcs across the sky; “thou art ashamed 
to confess that thou lovest thy father’s whims more than 


58 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


thy lady’s favors. Well, well ! Such lovers are hardly 
for my trouble !” 

But here came the voice of Mr. Heywood, calling his 
groom. She started, glanced around her as if seeking a 
covert, then peered from the door, and glided noiselessly 
out. 


CHAPTER VL 


PREPARATIONS. 

G REAT was the merriment in Raglan Castle over 
the discomfiture of the bumpkins, and many were 
the compliments Tom received in parlor, nursery, kitchen, 
guard-room — everywhere — on the success of his hastily- 
formed scheme for the chastisement of their presumption. 
The household had looked for a merry time on the 
occasion of the wedding, but had not expected such a 
full cup of delight as had been pressed out for them 
betwixt the self-importance of the overweening yokels 
and the inventive faculties of. Tom Fool. All the evening 
one standing in any open spot of the castle might have 
heard, now on the one, now on the other side, renewed 
bursts of merriment ripple the air; but as the still 
autumn night crept on, the intervals between grew longer 
and longer, until at length all sounds ceased, and Silence 
took up her ancient reign, broken only by the occasional 
stamp of a horse or howl of a watch-dog. But the earl, 
who, from simplicity of nature and peace of conscience 
combined, was perhaps better fitted for the enjoyment 
of the joke — in a time when such ludifications were not 
yet considered unsuitable to the dignity of the highest 
position — than any other member of his household, had, 
through it all, showed a countenance in which, although 
eyes, lips, and voice shared in the laughter, there yet 
lurked a thoughtful doubt concerning the result. For 
he knew that, in some shape or other, and that certainly 
not the true one, the affair would be spread over the 


60 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


country, where now prejudice against the catholics was 
strong and dangerous in proportion to the unreason of 
those who cherished it. Now also it was becoming 
pretty plain that except the king yielded every preroga- 
tive, and became the puppet which the mingled pride 
and apprehension of the parliament would have him, 
their differences must ere long be referred to the arbitra- 
tion of the sword, in which case there was no shadow of 
doubt in the mind of the earl as to the part befitting a 
peer of the realm. The king was a protestant, but no 
less the king; and not this man but his parents had 
sinned in forsaking the church — of which sin their off- 
spring had now to bear the penalty, reaping the whirl- 
wind sprung from the stormy seeds by them sown. For 
what were the puritans but the lawfully-begotten children 
of the so-called Reformation, whose spirit they inherited, 
and in whose footsteps they so closely followed? In 
the midst of such reflections, dawned slowly in the mind 
of the devout old man the enchanting hope that perhaps 
he might be made the messenger of God to lead back to 
the true fold the wandering feet of his king. But, fail 
or speed, in any result, so long as his castle held to- 
gether, it should stand for the king. Faithful catholic 
as he was, the brave old man was English to the back- 
bone. 

And there was no time to lose. This visit of search, 
let it have originated how it might, and be as despicable 
in itself as it was ludicrous in its result, showed but too 
clearly how strong the current of popular feeling was 
setting against all the mounds of social distinction, and 
not kingly prerogative alone. What preparations might 
be needful, must be prudent. 

That same night, then, long after the rest of the 
household had retired, three men took advantage of a 
fine half-moon to make a circuit of the castle, first along 


PREPARA TIONS. 


61 


the counterscarp of the moat, and next along all accessi- 
ble portions of the walls and battlements. They halted 
often, and, with much observation of the defenses, held 
earnest talk together, sometimes eagerly contending 
rather than disputing, but far more often mutually sug- 
gesting and agreeing. At length one of them, whom the 
others called Caspar, retired, and the earl was left with 
his son Edward, Lord Herbert, the only person in the 
castle who had gone to neither window nor door to 
delight himself with the discomfiture of the parliamentary 
commissioners. 

They entered the long picture gallery, faintly lighted 
from its large windows to the court, but chiefly from the 
oriel which formed the northern end of it, where they 
now sat down, the earl being, for the second time that 
night, weary. Behind them was a long dim line of 
portraits, broken only by the great chimney-piece sup- 
ported by human figures, all of carved stone, and before 
them, nearly as dim, was the moon-massed landscape — a 
lovely view of the woodland, pasture, and red tilth to 
the northward of the castle. 

They sat silent for a while, and then the younger said: 

“ I fear you are fatigued, my lord. It is late for you 
to be out of bed; nature is mortal.” 

“Thou sayest well; nature is mortal, my son. But 
therein lies the comfort — it cannot last. It were hard to 
say whether of the two houses stands the more in need 
of the hand of the maker.” 

“Were it not for villainous saltpeter, my lord, the 
castle would hold out well enough.” 

“ And were it not for villainous gout, which is a traitor 
within it, I see not why this other should not hold out as 
long. Be sure, Herbert, I shall not render the keep for 
the taking of the outworks.” 

“I fear,” said his son, wishing to change the subject, 


62 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


“ this part where we now are is the most liable to hurt 
from artillery.” 

“Yes, but the groiind in front is not such as they 
would readiest plant it upon,” said the earl. “Do not 
let us forecast evil, only prepare for it.” 

“We shall do our best, my lord — with your lordship’s 
good counsel to guide us.” 

“You shall lack nothing, Herbert, that either counsel 
or purse of mine may reach unto.” 

“ I thank your lordship, for much depends upon both. 
And so I fear will his majesty find — if it comes to the 
worst.” 

A brief pause followed. 

“Thinkest thou not, Herbert,” said the earl, slowly 
and thoughtfully, “ it ill suits that a subject should have 
and to spare, and his liege go begging?” 

“My father is pleased to say so.” 

“ I am but evil pleased to say so. Bethink thee, son — 
what man can be pleased to part with his money ? And 
while my king is poor, I must be rich for him. Thou 
will not accuse me, Herbert, after I am gone to the rest, 
that I wasted thy substance, lad?” 

“ So long as you still keep wherewithal to give, I shall 
be content, my lord.” 

“Well, time will show. I but tell thee what runneth 
in my mind, for thou and I, Herbert, have bosomed no 
secrets. I will to bed. We must go the round again 
to-morrow — with the sun to hold us a candle.” 

The next day the same party made a similar circuit 
three times — in the morning, at noon, and in the evening 
— that the full light might uncover what the shadows 
had hid, and that the shadows might show what a per- 
pendicular light could not reveal. There is all the 
difference as to discovery whether a thing is lying under 
the shadow of another or casting one of its own. 


PREPARA TIONS. 


65 


After this came a review of the outer fortifications — if, 
indeed, they were worthy of the name — inclosing the 
gardens, the old tilting yard, now used as a bowling- 
green, the home-farmyard, and such other outlying por- 
tions under the stewardship of Sir Ralph Blackstone and 
the governorship of Charles Somerset, the earl’s youngest 
son. It was here that the most was wanted; and the 
next few days were chiefly spent in surveying these 
works, and drawing plans for their extension, strength- 
ening, and connection — especially about the stables, ar- 
morer’s shop, and smithy, where the building of new 
defenses was almost immediately set on foot. 

A thorough examination of the machinery of the vari- 
ous portcullises and drawbridges followed ; next an 
overhauling of the bolts, chains, and other defenses of 
the gates. Then came an inspection of the ordnance, 
from cannons down to drakes, through a gradation of 
names as uncouth to our ears and as unknown to the 
artillery descended from them, as many of the Christian 
names of the puritans are to their descendants of the 
present day. At length, to conclude the inspection, 
Lord Herbert and the master of the armory held consul- 
tation with the head armorer, and the mighty accumula- 
tion of weapons of all sorts was passed under the most 
rigid scrutiny ; many of them were sent to the forge, and 
others carried to the ground-floor of the keep. 

Presently things began to look busy in a quiet way 
about the place. Men were at work blasting the rocks 
in a quarry not far olf, whence laden carts went creeping 
to the castle, but this was oftener in the night. Some of 
them drove into the paved court, for here and there a 
buttress was wanted inside, and of the battlements not a 
few were weather-beaten and out of repair. These the 
earl would have let alone, on the ground that they were 
no longer more than ornamental, and therefore had 


64 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


better be repaired after the siege, if such should befall 
for the big guns would knock them about like cards; 
but Caspar reminded him that every time the ball from 
a cannon, culvering, or saker missed the parapet, it 
remained a sufficient bar to the bullet that might equally 
avail to carry off the defenseless gunner. The earl, 
however, although he yielded, maintained that the flying 
of the wall when struck was a more than counterbalanc- 
ing danger. 

The stock of provisions began to increase. The dry 
larder, which lay under the court, between the kitchen 
and buttery, was by degrees filled with gammons and 
flitches of bacon, well dried and smoked. Wheat, barley, 
oats, and pease were stored in the granary, and potatoes 
in a pit dug in the orchard. 

Strange faces in the guard-room caused wonderings 
and questions amongst the women. The stables began 
to fill with horses, and “ more man ” to go about the 
farmyard and outhouses. 


CHAPTER VII. 


REFLECTIONS. 

L EFT alone with Lady, his mare, Richard could^not 
help brooding — rather than pondering — over what 
the old woman had said. Not that for a moment he 
contemplated as a possibility the acceptance of the 
witch’s offer. To come himself into any such close 
relations with her as that would imply, was in repulsive- 
ness second only to the idea of subjecting Dorothy to 
her influences. For something to occupy his hands, 
that his mind might be restless at will, he gave his mare 
a careful currying, then an extra feed of oats, and then a 
gallop ; after which it was time to go to bed. 

I doubt if anything but the consciousness of crime 
will keep healthy youth awake, and, as such conscious- 
ness is generally far from it, youth seldom counts the 
watches of the night. Richard soon fell fast asleep, and 
dreamed that his patron saint — alas for his protestant- 
ism ! — appeared to him, handed him a lance headed with 
a single flashing diamond, and told him to go and there- 
with kill the dragon. But just as he was asking the way 
to the dragon’s den, that he might perform his behest, 
the saint vanished, and, feeling the lance melting away 
in his grasp, he gradually woke to find it gone. 

After a long talk with his father in the study, he was 
left to his own resources for the remainder of the day ; 
and, as it passed and the night drew on, the offer of the 
witch kept growing upon his imagination, and his longing 
to see Dorothy became stronger and stronger, until at 


66 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


last it was almost too intense to be borne. He had 
never before known such a possession, and was more 
than half inclined to attribute it to the arts of Mother 
Rees. 

His father was busy in his study below, writing letters 
— an employment which now occupied much of his time ; 
jtnd Richard sat alone in a chamber in the upper part of 
one of the many gables of the house, which he had 
occupied longer than he could remember. Its one small 
projecting lozenge-paned window looked towards Doro- 
thy's home. Some years ago he had been able to see 
her window from it through a gap in the trees, by favor 
of which, indeed, they had indulged in a system of 
communications by means of colored flags — so satisfac- 
tory that Dorothy not only pressed into the service all 
the old frocks she could find, but got into trouble by 
cutting up one almost new for the enlargement of the 
somewhat limited scope of their telegraphy. In this 
window he now sat, sending his soul through the dark- 
ness, milky with the clouded light of half an old moon, 
towards the ancient sun-dial, where Time stood so still 
that sometimes Richard had known an hour there pass 
in a moment. 

Never until now had he felt enmity in space : it had 
been hitherto rather as a bridge to bear him to Dorothy 
than a gulf to divide him from her presence; but now, 
through the interpenetrative power of feeling, their alien- 
ation had affected all around as well as within him, and 
space appeared as a solid enemy, and darkness as an 
unfriendly enchantress, each doing what it could to 
separate betwixt him and the being to whom his soul 
was drawn as — no, there was no as for such drawing. 
No opposition of mere circumstances could have created 
the feeling; it was the sense of an inward separation 
taking form outwardly. For Richard was now but too 


REFLECTIONS. 


67 


well convinced that he had no power of persuasion equal 
to the task of making Dorothy see things as he saw 
them. The dividing influence of imperfect opposing 
goods is potent as that of warring good and evil, with 
this important difference, that the former is but for 
a season, and will one day bind as strongly as it 
parted, while the latter is essential, absolute, impassable, 
eternal. 

To Dorothy, Richard seemed guilty of overweening 
arrogance and its attendant presumption ; she could not 
see the form ethereal to which he bowed. To Richard, 
Dorothy appeared the dupe of superstition; he could 
not see the god that dwelt within the idol. To Dorothy, 
Richard seemed to be one who gave the holy name of 
truth to nothing but the offspring of his own vain fancy ; 
to Richard, Dorothy appeared one who so little loved 
the truth that she was ready to accept anything presented 
to her as such by those who themselves loved the word 
more than the spirit, and the chrysalis of safety better 
than the wings of power. But it is only for a time that 
any good can to the good appear evil, and at this very 
moment Nature, who in her blindness is stronger to bind 
than the farthest-seeing intellect to loose, was urging 
him into her presence ; and the heart of Dorothy, not- 
withstanding her initiative in the separation, was leaning 
as lovingly as sadly after the youth she had left alone 
with the defaced sun-dial, the symbol of Time’s weari- 
ness. Had they, however, been permitted to meet as 
they would, the natural result of ever-renewed dissension 
would have been a thorough separation in heart, no 
heavenly twilights of loneliness giving time for the love 
which grows like the grass to recover from the scorching 
heat of intellectual jar and friction. 

The waning moon at length peered warily from behind 
a bank of cloud, and her dim light melting through the 


68 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


darkness filled the night with a dream of the day. 
Richard was no more of a poet or dreamer of dreams, 
than is any honest youth so long as love holds the 
bandage of custom away from his eyes. The poets are 
they who all their life long contrive to see over or 
through the bandage; but they would, I doubt, have 
but few readers, had not Nature decreed that all youths 
and maidens shall, for a period, be it long or short, 
become aware that they too are of the race of the singers 
— shall, in the journey of their life, at least pass through 
the zone of song : some of them recognize it as the 
region of truth, and continue to believe in it still when 
it seems to have vanished from around them; others 
scoff as it disappears, and curse themselves for dupes. 
Through this zone Richard was now passing. Hence 
the moon wore to him a sorrowful face, and he felt a 
vague sympathy in her regard, that of one who was 
herself in trouble, half the light of her lord’s countenance 
withdrawn. For science had not for him interfered with 
the shows of things by a partial revelation of their 
realities. He had not learned that the face of the moon 
is the face of a corpse-world, that the sadness upon it is 
the sadness of utter loss, that her light has in it no 
dissolved smile, is but the reflex from a lifeless mirror ; 
that of all the orbs we know best she can have least to 
do with lovers’ longings and losses, she alone having no 
love left in her, the cold cinder of a quenched world. 
Not an out-burnt cinder, though! she needs but to be 
cast again into the furnace of the sun. 

As it was, Richard had gazed at her hardly for a 
minute when he found the tears running down his face, 
and starting up ashamed of the unmanly weakness, 
hardly knew what he was doing before he found himself 
in the open air. From the hall clock came the first 
stroke of twelve as he closed the door behind him. It 


REFLECTIONS. 


69 


was the hour at which Mother Rees had offered him a 
meeting with Dorothy, but it was assuredly with no 
expectation of seeing her that he turned his steps towards 
her dwelling. 


CHAPTER VI IT. 


AN ADVENTURE. 

W HEN he reached the spot at which he usually 
turned off by a gap in the hedge to needle his 
way through the unpathed wood, he yielded to the 
impulses of memory and habit, and sought the yew- 
circle, where for some moments he stood by the dumb, 
disfeatured stone, which seemed to slumber in the moon- 
light, a monument slowly vanishing from above a van- 
ished grave. Indeed it might well have been the grave 
of buried Time, for what fitter monument could he have 
than a mutilated sun-dial, what better inclosure than 
such a hedge of yews, and more suitable light than that 
of the dying moon ? Or was it but that the heart of the 
youth, receiving these things as into a concave mirror, 
reprojected them into space, all shadowy with its own 
ghostiness and gloom ? Close by the dial, like the dark 
way into regions where time is not, yawned the mouth of 
the pleached alley. Beyond that was her window, on 
which the moon must now be shining. He entered the 
alley, and walked softly towards the house. Suddenly, 
down the dark tunnel, came rushing upon him Dorothy’s 
mastiff, with a noise as of twenty soft feet, and a growl 
as if his throat had been full of teeth — changing to a 
boisterous welcome when he discovered who the stranger 
was. Fearful of disturbing the household, Richard soon 
quieted the dog, which was in the habit of obeying him 
almost as readily as his mistress, and, fearful of disturb- 
ing sleepers or watchers, approached the house like a 
thief. To gain a sight of Dorothy’s window he had to 


AN ADVENTURE. 


71 


pass that of the parlor, and then the porch, which he did 
on the grass, that his steps might be noiseless. But 
here the dog started from his heel, and bounded into the 
porch, leading after him the eyes of Richard, who there- 
upon saw what would have else remained undiscovered 
— two figures, namely, standing in its deep shadow. 
Judging it his part, as a friend of the family, to see 
who, at so late an hour, and so near the house, seemed 
thus to avoid discovery, Richard drew nearer, and the 
next moment saw that the door was open behind them, 
and that they were Dorothy and a young man. 

“The gates will be shut,” said Dorothy. 

“ It is no matter ; old Eccles will open to me at any 
hour,” was the answer. 

“ Still it were well you went without delay,” said 
Dorothy; and her voice trembled a little, for she had 
caught sight of Richard. 

Now not only are anger and stupidity near of kin, but 
when a man whose mental movements are naturally 
deliberate, is suddenly spurred, he is in great danger of 
acting like a fool, and Richard did act like a fool. He 
strode up to the entrance of the porch, and said, 

“ Do you not hear the lady, sir? She tells you to go.” 

A voice as cool and self-possessed as the other was 
hasty and perturbed, replied, 

“ I am much in the wrong, sir, if the lady do not turn 
the command upon yourself. Until you have obeyed it, 
she may perhaps se reason for withdrawing it in respect 
of me.” 

Richard stepped into the porch, but Dorothy glided 
between them, and gently pushed him out. 

“Richard Hey wood!” she said. 

“Whew!” interjected the stranger, softly. 

“You can claim no right,” she went on, “to be here 
at this hour. Pray go, you will disturb my mother.” 


72 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


* “Who is this man, then, whose right seems acknowl- 
edged?” asked Richard, in ill-suppressed fury. 

“When you address me like a gentleman, such as I 
used to believe you ” 

“ May I presume to ask when you ceased to regard me 
as a gentleman, Mistress Dorothy?” 

“As soon as I found that you had learned to despise 
law and religion,” answered the girl. “Such a one will 
hardly succeed in acting the part of a gentleman, even 
had he the blood of the Somersets in his veins.” 

“I thank you, Mistress Dorothy,” said the stranger, 
“and will profit by the plain hint. Once more tell me 
to go, and I will obey.” 

“ He must go first,” returned Dorothy. 

Richard had been standing as if stunned, but now 
with an effort recovered himself. 

“ I will wait for you,” he said, and turned away. 

“For whom, sir?” asked Dorothy, indignantly. 

“You have refused me the gentleman’s name,” an- 
swered Richard: “perhaps I may have the good fortune 
to persuade himself to be more obliging.” 

“I shall not keep you waiting long,” said the young 
man significantly, as Richard walked away. 

To do Richard justice, and greatly he needs it, I must 
make the remark that such had been the intimacy 
betwixt him and Dorothy, that he might well imagine 
himself acquainted with all the friends of her house. 
But the intimacy had been confined to the children ; the 
heads of the two houses, although good neighbors, had 
not been drawn towards each other, and their mutual 
respect had not ripened into friendship. Hence many 
of the family and social relations of each were unknown 
to the other; and indeed both families led such a retired 
life that the children knew little of their own relatives 
even, and seldom spoke of any. 


AN ADVENTURE. 


73 


Lady Scudamore, the mother of the stranger, was first 
cousin to Lady Vaughan. They had been very intimate 
as girls, but had not met for years — hardly since the 
former married Sir John, the son of one of king James’s 
carpet-knights. Hearing of her cousin’s illness, she had 
come to visit her at last, under the escort of her son. 
Taken with his new cousin, the youth had lingered and 
lingered ; and in fact Dorothy had been unable to get 
rid of him before an hour strange for leave-taking in 
such a quiet and yet hospitable neighborhood. 

Richard took his stand on the side of the public road 
opposite the gate; but just ere Scudamore came, which 
was hardly a minute after, a cloud crept over the moon, 
and as he happened to stand in a line with the bole of a 
tree, Scudamore did not catch sight of him. When he 
turned to walk along the road, Richard thought he 
avoided him, and, making a great stride or two after 
him, called aloud, 

“ Stop, sir, stop. You forget your appointments over 
easily, I think.” 

“Oh, you are there !” said the youth, turning. 

“I am glad you acknowledge my presence,” said 
Richard, not the better pleased with his new acquaint- 
ance that his speech and behavior had an easy tone of 
superiority, which, if indefinably felt by the home-bred 
lad, was not therefore to be willingly accorded. His 
easy carriage, his light step, his still shoulders and lithe 
spine, indicated both birth and training. 

“Just the night for a serenade,” he went on, heedless 
of Richard’s remark “ — bright, but not too bright, 
cloudy, but not too cloudy.” 

“Sir!” said Richard, amazed at his coolness. 

“Oh, you want to quarrel with me!” returned the 
youth. “ But it takes two to fight as well as to kiss, and 
I will not make one to-night. I know who you are well 

D 


74 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


enough, and have no quarrel with you, except indeed it 
be true- — as indeed it must, for Dorothy tells me so — 
that you have turned roundhead as well as your father.” 

“ What right have you to speak so familiarly of Mistress 
Dorothy?” said Richard. 

“ It occurs to me,” replied Scudamore airily, “ that I 
had better ask you by what right you haunt her house at 
midnight. But I would not willingly cross you in cold 
blood. I wish you a good night, and better luck next 
time you go courting.” 

The moon swam from behind the cloud, and her 
over-ripe and fading light seemed to the eyes of Richard 
to gather upon the figure before him and there revive. 
The youth had on a doublet of some reddish color, ill 
brought out by the moonlight, but its silver lace and the 
rapier hilt inlaid with silver, shone the keener against it. 
A short cloak hung from his left shoulder, trimmed also 
with silver lace, and a little cataract of silver fringe fell 
from the edges of his short trousers into the wide tops 
of his boots, which were adorned with ruffles. He wore 
a large collar of lace, and cuffs of the same were folded 
back from his bare hands. A broad-brimmed beaver 
hat, its silver band fastened with a jewel holding a 
plume of willowy feathers, completed his attire, which 
he wore with just the slightest of a jaunty air. It was 
hardly the dress for a walk at midnight, but he had 
come in his mother’s carriage, and had to go home 
without it. 

Alas now for Richard’s share in the freedom to which 
he had of late imagined himself devoted! No sooner 
had the words last spoken entered his ears than he was 
but a driven slave ready to rush into any quarrel with 
the man who spoke them. Ere he had gone three paces 
he had stepped in front of him. 

“Whatever rights Mistress Dorothy may have given 


AN ADVENTURE. 


75 


you,” he said, “she had none to transfer in respect of my 
father. What do you mean by calling him a roundhead ?” 

“Why, is he not one?” asked the youth simply, 
keeping his ground, in spite of the unpleasant proximity 
of Richard’s person. “ I am sorry to have wronged him, 
but I mistook him for a ringleader of the same name. I 
heartily beg your pardon.” 

“You did not mistake,” said Richard stupidly. 

“Then I did him no wrong,” rejoined the youth, and 
once more would have gone his way. 

But Richard, angrier than ever at finding he had given 
him such an easy advantage, moved with his movement, 
and kept rudely in front of him, provoking a quarrel — in 
clownish fashion, it must be confessed. 

“By heaven!” said Scudamore, “if Dorothy had not 

begged me not to fight with you ,” and as he spoke 

he slipped suddenly past his antagonist, and walked 
swiftly away. Richard plunged after him, and seized him 
roughly by the shoulder. Instantaneously he wheeled 
on the very foot whence he was taking the next stride, 
and as he turned his rapier gleamed in the moonlight. 
The same moment it left his hand, he scarce knew how, 
and flew across the hedge. Richard, who was unarmed, 
had seized the blade, and, almost by one and the same 
movement of his wrist, wrenched the hilt from the grasp 
of his adversary and flung the thing from him. Then 
closing with the cavalier, slighter and less skilled in such 
encounters, the roundhead almost instantly threw him 
upon the turf that bordered the road. 

“Take that for drawing on an unarmed man,” he said. 

No reply came. The youth lay stunned. 

Then compassion woke in the heart of the angry 
Richard, and he hastened to his help. Ere he reached 
him, however, he made an attempt to rise, but only to 
stagger and fall again. 


76 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


“Curse you for a roundhead!” he cried; “you’ve 
twisted some of my tackle. I can’t stand.” 

“I’m sorry,” returned Richard; “but why did you 
bare bilbo on a naked man? A right malignant you 
are !” 

“Did I?” returned Scudamore. “You laid hands on 
me so suddenly! I ask your pardon.” 

Accepting the offered aid of Richard, he rose; but 
his right knee was so much hurt that he could not walk 
a step without great pain. Full of regret for the suffering 
he had caused, Richard lifted him in his arms, and 
seated him on a low wall of earth, which was all that 
here inclosed Lady Vaughan’s shrubbery; then, breaking 
through the hedge on the opposite side of the way, 
presently returned with the rapier, and handed it to 
him. Scudamore accepted it courteously, with difficulty 
replaced it in its sheath, rose, and once more attempted 
to walk, but gave a groan, and would have fallen had 
not Richard caught him. 

“The devil is in it!” he cried, with more annoyance 
than anger. “ If I am not in my place at my lord’s 
breakfast to-morrow, there will be questioning. That I 
had leave to accompany my mother makes the mischief. 
If I had stole away, it would be another matter. It will 
be hard to bear rebuke, and no frolic.” 

“Come home with me,” said Richard. “My father 

will do his best to atone for the wrong done by his 
99 

son. 

“Set foot across the threshold of a roundhead fanatic! 
In the way of hospitality ! Not if the choice lay betwixt 
that and my coffin!” cried the cavalier. 

“Then let me carry you back to Lady Vaughan’s,” 
said Richard, with a torturing pang of jealousy, which 
only his sense of right, now thoroughly roused, enabled 
him to defy. 


AN ADVENTURE . 77 

“ I dare not. I should terrify my mother, and perhaps 
kill my cousin.” 

“Your mother! your cousin!” cried Richard. 

“Yes,” returned Scudamore; “my mother is there, on 
a visit to her cousin, La4y Vaughan.” 

“ Alas, I am more to blame than I knew !” said Richard. 

“No,” Scudamore went on, heedless of Richard’s lam- 
entation, “ I must crawl back to Raglan as I may. If I 
get there before the morning, I shall be able to show 
reason why I should not wait upon my lord at his 
breakfast.” 

“You belong to the earl’s household, then?” said 
Richard. 

“Yes; and I fear I shall be gray-headed before I 
belong to anything else. He makes much of the ancient 
customs of the country : I would he would follow them. 
In the good old times I should have been a squire at 
least by now, if, indeed, I had not earned my spurs; but 
his lordship will never be content without me to hand 
him his buttered egg at breakfast, and fill his cup at 
dinner with his favorite claret. And so I am neither 
more nor less than a page, which rhymes with my age 
better than suits it. But the earl has a will of his own. 
He is a master worth serving though. And there is my 
Lady Elizabeth and my Lady Mary — not to mention my 
Lord Herbert! But,” he concluded, rubbing his injured 
knee with both hands, “why do I prate of them to a 
roundhead!” 

“Why indeed?” returned Richard. “Are they not, 
the earl and all his people, traitors, and that of the 
worst? Are they not the enemies of the truth — wor- 
shipers of idols, bowing the knee to a woman, and kissing 
the very toes of an old man so in love with ignorance 
that he tortures the philosopher who tells him the truth 
about the world and its motions?” 


78 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


“ Go on, Master Roundhead ! I cannot chastise you, 
and that you know. This cursed knee ” 

“ I will stand unarmed within your thrust, and never 
budge a foot,” said Richard. “But no,” he added, “ I 
dare not, lest I should further injure one I have wronged 
already. Let there be a truce between us.” 

“ I am no papist,” returned Scudamore. “ I speak 
only as one of the earl’s household — true men all. For 
them I cast the word in your teeth, you roundhead 
traitor! For myself I am of the English church.” 

“It is but the wolf and the wolfs cub,” said Richard. 
“Prelatical Episcopacy is but the old harlot veiled, or, 
rather, forsooth, her bloody scarlet blackened in the 
sulphur fumes of her coming desolation.” 

“Curse on, roundhead,” sighed the youth; “I must 
crawl home.” 

Once more he rose and made an effort to walk. But 
it was of no use ; walk he could not. 

“I must wait till the morning,” he said, “when some 
Christian wagoner may be passing. Leave me in peace.” 

“Nay, I am no such boor,” said Richard. “Do you 
think you could ride?” 

“I could try.” 

“ I will bring you the best mare in Gwent. But tell 
me your name, that I may know with whom I have the 
honor of a feud.” 

“My name is Rowland Scudamore,” answered the 
youth. “Yours I know already, and, roundhead as you 
are, you have some smatch of honor in you.” 

With an air of condescension he held out his hand, 
which his adversary, oppressed with a sense of the injury 
he had done him, did not refuse. 

Richard hurried home, and to the stable, where he 
saddled his mare. But his father, who was still in his 
study, heard the sound of her hoofs in the paved yard, 


AN ADVENTURE. 


79 


and met him as he led her out on the road, with an 
inquiry as to his destination at such an hour. Richard 
told him that he had had a quarrel with a certain young 
fellow of the name of Scudamore, a page of the earl of 
Worcester, whom he had met at Lady Vaughan’s; and 
recounted the result. 

“Was your quarrel a just one, my son?” 

“No, sir. I was in the wrong.” 

“ Then you are so far in the right now. And are you 
going to help him home?” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“ Have you confessed yourself in the wrong?” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“ Then go, my son. But beware of private quarrel in 
such a season of strife. This youth and thyself may 
meet some day in mortal conflict on the battle-field; 
and for my part — I know not how it may be with another 
— in such case I would rather slay my friend than my 
enemy.” 

Enlightened by the inward experience of the moment, 
Richard was able to understand and respond to the 
feeling. How different a sudden action, flashed off the 
surface of a man’s nature, may be from that which, had 
time been given, would have unfolded itself from its 
depths ! 

Bare-headed, Roger Heywood walked beside his son 
as he led the mare to the spot where Scudamore perforce 
awaited his return. They found him stretched on the 
roadside, plucking handfuls of grass, and digging up the 
turf with his fingers, thus, and thus alone, betraying that 
he suffered. Mr. Heywood at first refrained from any 
offer of hospitality, believing he would be more inclined 
to accept it after he had proved the difficulty of riding, 
in which case a previous refusal might stand in the way. 
But although a slight groan escaped as they lifted him 


80 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


to the saddle, he gathered up the reins at once, and sat 
erect while they shortened the stirrup-leathers. Lady 
seemed to know what was required of her, and stood as 
still as a vaulting horse until Richard took the bridle to 
lead her away. 

“I see!” said Scudamore; “you can’t trust me with 
your horse!” 

“Not so, sir,” answered Mr. Heywood. “We cannot 
trust the horse with you. It is quite impossible for you 
to ride so far alone. If you will go, you must submit to 
the attendance of my son, on which I am sorry to think 
you have so good a claim. But will you not yet change 
your mind and be our guest — for the night at least? 
We will send a messenger to the castle at earliest dawn.” 

Scudamore declined the invitation, but with perfect 
courtesy, for there was that about Roger Heywood which 
rendered it impossible for any man who was himself a 
gentleman, whatever his judgment of him might be, to 
show him disrespect. And the moment the mare began 
to move, he felt no further inclination to object to 
Richard’s company at her head, for he perceived that, 
should she prove in the least troublesome, it would be 
impossible for him to keep his seat. He did not suffer 
so much, however, as to lose all his good spirits, or fail 
in his part of a conversation composed chiefly of what 
we now call chaff, both of them for a time avoiding all 
such topics as might lead to dispute, the one from a 
sense of wrong already done, the other from a vague 
feeling that he was under the protection of the foregone 
injury. 

“Have you known my cousin Dorothy long?” asked 
Scudamore. 

“ Longer than I can remember,” answered Richard. 

“ Then you must be more like brother and sister than 
lovers.” 


AN ADVENTURE. 


81 


“That, I fear, is her feeling,” replied Richard honestly. 

“You need not think of me as a rival,” said Scuda- 
more. “ I never saw the young woman in my life before, 
and although anything of yours, being a roundhead’s, is 
fair game, ” 

“Your humble servant, Sir Cavalier!” interjected 
Richard. “Pray use your pleasure.” 

“I tell you plainly,” Scudamore went on, without 
heeding the interruption, “though I admire my cousin, 
as I do any young woman, if she be but a shade beyond 
the passable, ” 

“The ape! The coxcomb!” said Richard to him-, 
self. 

“ I am not, therefore, dying for her love ; and I give 
you this one honest warning that, though I would rather 
see Mistress Dorothy in her winding sheet than dame to 
a roundhead, I should be — yes, I may be a more danger- 
ous rival in respect of your mare, than of any lady you 
are likely to set eyes upon.” 

“What do you mean?” said Richard gruffly. 

“ I mean that, the king having at length resolved to be 
more of a monarch and less of a saint, ” 

“A saint!” echoed Richard, but the echo was rather a 
loud one, for it startled his mare and shook her rider. 

“Don’t shout like that,” cried the cavalier, with an 
oath. “Saint or sinner, I care not. He is my king, 
and I am his soldier. But with this knee you have given 
me, I shall be fitter for garrison than field-duty — damn 
it.” 

“You do not mean that his majesty has declared open 
war against the parliament?” exclaimed Richard. 

“Faithless puritan, I do,” answered Scudamore. “His 
majesty has at length — with reluctance, I am sorry to 
hear — taken up arms against his rebellious subjects. 
Land will be cheap, by and by.” 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


82 


“ Many such rumors have reached us,” returned Rich- 
ard quietly. “ The king spares no threats ; but for 
blows — well !” 

“Insolent fanatic!” shouted Vaughan, “I tell you 
his majesty is on his way from Scotland with an army of 
savages; and London has declared for the king.” 

Richard and his mare simultaneously quickened their 
pace. 

“ Then it is time you were in bed, Mr. Scudamore, for 
my mare and I will be wanted,” he cried. “ God be 
praised ! I thank you for the good news. It makes me 
young again to hear it.” 

“What the devil do you mean by jerking this cursed 
knee of mine so?” shouted Scudamore. “Faith, you 
were young enough in all conscience already, you fool ! 
You want to keep me in bed, as well as send me there ! 
Well out of the way, you think ! But I give you honest 
warning to look after your mare, for I vow I have fallen 
in love with her. She’s worth three, at least, of your 
Mistress Dorothies.” 

“You talk like a Dutch boor,” said Richard. 

“ Saith an English lout,” retorted Scudamore. “But, 
all things being lawful in love and war, not to mention 
hate and rebellion, this mare, if I am blessed with a 
chance, shall be — well, shall be translated.” 

“You mean from Redware to Raglan.” 

“Where she shall be entertained in a manner worthy 
of her, which is saying no little, if all her paces and 
points be equal to her walk and her crest.” 

“I trust you will be more pitiful to my poor Lady,” 
said Richard quietly. “If all they say be true, Raglan 
stables are no place for a mare of her breeding.” 

“What do you mean, roundhead ?” 

“Folk say your stables at Raglan are like other some 
Raglan matters — of the infernal sort.” 


AN ADVENTURE. 


Scudamore was silent for a moment. 

“ Whether the stables be under the pavement or over 
the leads,” he returned at last, “there are not a few in 
them as good as she — of which I hope *to satisfy my 
Lady some day,” he added, patting the mare’s neck. 

“Wert thou not hurt already, I would pitch thee out 
of the saddle,” said Richard. 

“Were I not hurt in the knee, thou couldst not,” said 
Scudamore. 

“I need not lay hand upon thee. Wert thou as sound 
in limb as thou art in wind, thou wouldst find thyself on 
the road ere thou knewest thou hadst taken leave of the 
saddle — did I but give the mare the sign she knows.” 

“By God’s grace,” said the cavalier, “she shall be 
mine, and teach me the trick of it.” 

Richard answered only with a grim laugh, and again, 
but more gently this time, quickened the mare’s pace. 
Little more had passed between them when the six-sided 
towers of Raglan rose on their view. 

Richard had from childhood been familiar with their 
aspect, especially that of the huge one called the Yellow 
Tower, but he had never yet been within the walls that 
encircled them. At any time during his life, almost up 
to the present hour, he might have entered without 
question, for the gates were seldom closed and never 
locked, the portcullises, sheathed in the wall above, 
hung moveless in their rusty chains, and the drawbridges 
spanned the moat from scarp to counterscarp, as if from 
the first their beams had rested there in solid masonry. 
And still, during the day, there was little sign of change, 
beyond an indefinable presence of busier life, even in 
the hush of the hot autumnal noon. But at night the 
drawbridges rose and the portcullises descended — each 
with its own peculiar creak and jar and scrape, setting 
the young rooks cawing in reply from every pinnacle 


84 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


and tree-top — never later than the last moment when 
the warder could see anything larger than a cat on the 
brow of the road this side the village. For who could 
tell when, or with what force at their command, the 
parliament might claim possession? And now another 
of the frequent reports had arrived, that the king had at 
length resorted to arms. It was altogether necessary for 
such as occupied a stronghold, unless willing to yield it 
to the first who demanded entrance, to keep watch and 
ward. 

Admitted at the great brick gate, the outermost of all, 
and turning aside from the steps leading up to the white 
stone gate and main entrance beyond, with its draw- 
bridge and double portcullis, Richard, by his companion’s 
directions, led his mare to the left, and, rounding the 
moat of the citadel, sought the western gate of the 
castle, which seemed to shelter itself under the great 
bulk of the Yellow Tower, the cannon upon more than 
one of whose bastions closely commanded it, and made 
up for its inferiority in defense of its own. 

Scudamore had scarcely called ere the warder, who 
had been waked by the sound of the horse’s feet, began 
to set the machinery of the portcullis in motion. 

“What, wounded already, Master Scudamore!” he 
cried, as they rode under the archway. 

“Yes, Eccles,” answered Scudamore, “ — wounded and 
taken prisoner and brought home for ransom!” 

As they spoke, Richard made use of his eyes, with a 
vague notion that some knowledge of the place might 
one day or other be of service, but it was little he could 
see. The moon was almost down, and her low light, 
prolific of shadows, shone straight in through the lifted 
portcullis, but in the gateway where they stood, there 
was nothing for her to show but the groined vault, the 
massy walls, and the huge iron-studded gate beyond. 


AN ADVENTURE. 


85 


“Curse you for a roundhead!” cried Scudamore, in 
the wrath engendered of a fierce twinge, as Heywood 
sought to help his lamed leg over the saddle. 

“ Dismount on this side then,” said Richard, regard- 
less of the insult. 

But the warder had caught the word. 

“ Roundhead!” he exclaimed. 

Scudamore did not answer until he found himself safe 
on his feet, and by that time he had recovered his good 
manners. 

“ This is young Mr. Heywood of Redware,” he said, 
and moved towards the wicket, leaning on Richard’s arm. 

But the old warder stepped in front, and stood between 
them and the gate. 

“Not a damned roundhead of the pack shall set foot 
across this door-sill, so long as I hold the gate,” he 
cried, with a fierce gesture of the right arm. And 
therewith he set his back to the wicket. 

“Tut, tut, Eccles!” returned Scudamore impatiently. 
“ Good words are worth much, and cost little.” 

“If the old dog bark, he gives counsel,” rejoined 
Eccles, immovable. 

Heywood was amused, and stood silent, waiting the 
result. He had no particular wish to enter, and yet 
would have liked to see what could be seen of the court. 

“ Where the door-keeper is a churl, what will folk say 
of the master of the house?” said Scudamore. 

“ They may say as they list ; it will hurt neither him 
nor me,” said Eccles. 

“Make haste, my good fellow, and let us through,” 
pleaded Scudamore. “By Saint George! but my leg is 
in great pain. I fear the knee-cap is broken, in which 
case I shall not trouble thee much for a week of months.” 

As he spoke, he stood leaning on Richard’s arm, and 
behind them stood Lady, still as a horse of bronze. 


86 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


“I will but drop the portcullis,” said the warder, “and 
then I will carry thee to thy room in my arms. But not 
a cursed roundhead shall enter here, I swear.” 

“Let us through at once,” said Scudamore, trying the 
imperative. 

“ Not if the earl himself gave the order,” persisted the 
man. 

“ Ho ! ho ! what is that you say ? Let the gentleman 
through,” cried a voice from somewhere. 

The warder opened the wicket immediately, stepped 
inside, and held it open while they entered, nor uttered 
another word. But as soon as Richard had got Scuda- 
more clear of the threshold, to which he lent not a 
helping finger, he stepped quietly out again, closed the 
wicket behind him, and taking Lady by the bridle, led 
her back over the bridge towards the bowling-green. 

Scudamore had just time to whisper to Heywood, “ It 
is my master, the earl himself,” when the voice came 
again. 

“What! wounded, Rowland? How is this? And 
who have you there?” 

But at that moment, Richard heard the sound of his 
mare’s hoofs on the bridge, and leaving Scudamore to 
answer for them both, bounded back to the wicket, 
darted through, and called her by name. Instantly she 
stood stock still, notwithstanding a vicious kick in the 
ribs from Eccles, not unseen of Heywood. Enraged at 
the fellow’s insolence, he dealt him a sudden blow that 
stretched him at the mare’s feet, vaulted into the saddle, 
and had reached the outer gate before he had recovered 
himself. The sleepy porter had just let him through, 
when the warder’s signal to let no one out reached him. 
Richard turned with a laugh. 

“When next you catch a roundhead,” he said, “keep 
him,” and giving Lady the rein, galloped off, leaving the 


AN AD VENTURE. 87 

porter staring after him through the bars like a half- 
roused wild beast. 

Not doubting the rumor of open hostilities, the ward- 
er's design had been to secure the mare, and pretend 
she had run away, for a good horse was now more 
precious than ever. 

The earl's study was over the gate, and as he suffered 
much from gout and slept ill, he not unfrequently sought 
tefuge in the night-watches with his friends Chaucer, 
Gower, and Shakspere. 

Richard drew rein at the last point whence the castle 
would have been visible in the day-time. All he saw 
was a moving light. The walls whence it shone were 
one day to be as the shell around the kernel of his des- 
tiny. 


CHAPTER IX. 


LOVE AND WAR 


HEN Richard reached home and recounted the 



vv escape he had had, an imprecation, the first he 
had ever heard him utter, broke from his father’s lips. 
With the indiscrimination of party-spirit, he looked upon 
the warder’s insolence and attempted robbery as the 
spirit and behavior of his master, the earl being in fact 
as little capable of such conduct as Mr. Heywood him- 


self. 


Immediately after their early breakfast the next morn- 
ing, he led his son to a chamber in the roof, of the very 
existence of which he had been ignorant, and there 
discovered to him good store of such armor of both 
kinds as was then in use, which for some years past he 
had been quietly collecting in view of the time — which, 
in the light of the last rumor, seemed to have at length 
arrived — when strength would have to decide the antag- 
onism of opposed claims. Probably also it was in view 
of this time, seen from afar in silent approach, that, from 
the very moment when he took his education into his 
own hands, he had paid thorough attention to Richard’s 
bodily as well as mental accomplishment, encouraging 
him in all manly sports, such as wrestling, boxing, and 
riding to hounds, with the more martial training of 
sword-exercises, with and without the target, and shoot- 
ing with the carbine and the new-fashioned flint-lock 
pistols. 

The rest of the morning Richard spent in choosing a 
head-piece, and mail plates for breast, back, neck. 


LOVE AND WAD. 


89 


shoulders, arms, and thighs. The next thing was to set 
the village tailor at work upon a coat of thick strong 
leather, dressed soft and pliant, which they called buff, 
to wear under his armor. After that came the proper 
equipment of Lady, and that of the twenty men whom 
his father expected to provide from amongst his own 
tenants, and for whom he had already a full provision of 
clothing and armor; they had to be determined on, 
conferred with, and fitted, one by one, so as to avoid 
drawing attention to the proceeding. Hence both Mr. 
Heywood and Richard had enough to do, and the more 
that Faithful Stopchase, on whom was their chief de- 
pendence, had not yet recovered sufficiently from the 
effects of his fall to be equal to the same exertion as 
formerly — of which he was the more impatient that he 
firmly believed he had been a special object of Satanic 
assault, because of the present value of his counsels, and 
the coming weight of his deeds on the side of the well- 
affected. Thus occupied, the weeks passed into months. 

During this time Richard called again and again upon 
Dorothy, ostensibly to inquire after her mother. Only 
once however did she appear, when she gave him to 
understand she was so fully occupied, that, although 
obliged by his attention, he must not expect to see her 
again. 

“ But I will be honest, Richard,” she added, “ and let 
you know plainly that, were it otherwise in respect of 
my mother, I yet should not see you, for you and I have 
parted company, and are already so far asunder on 
different roads that I must bid you farewell at once 
while yet we can hear each other speak.” 

There was no anger, only a cold sadness in her tone 
and manner, while her bearing was stately as towards 
one with whom she had never had intimacy. Even her 
sadness seemed to Richard to have respect to the hope- 


90 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


less condition of her mother’s health, and not at all to 
the changed relation between him and her. 

“I trust, at least, mistress Dorothy,” he said with 
some bitterness, “ you will grant me the justice that what 
I do, I do with a good conscience. After all that has 
been betwixt us I ask for no more.” 

“What more could the best of men ask for?” 

“ I, who am far from making any claim to rank with 
such ” 

“ I am glad to know it,” interjected Dorothy. 

“ am yet capable of hoping that an eye at once 

keener and kinder than yours, may see conscience at the 
very root of the actions which you, Dorothy, will doubt- 
less most condemn.” 

Was this the boy she had despised for indifference? 

“Was it conscience drove you to sprain my cousin 
Rowland’s knee?” she asked. 

Richard was silent for a moment. The sting was too 
cruel. 

“ Pray hesitate not to say so, if such be your convic- 
tion,” added Dorothy. 

“No,” replied Richard, recovering himself. “I trust 
it is not such a serious matter as you say ; but any how 
it was not conscience but jealousy and anger that drove 
me to that wrong.” 

“Did you see the action such at the time?” 

“No, surely; else I would not have been guilty of 
that for which I am truly sorry now.” 

“ Then perhaps the day will come when, looking back 
on what you do now, you will regard it with the like 
disapprobation. God grant it may!” she added, with a 
deep sigh. 

“ That can hardly be, mistress Dorothy. I am, in the 
matters to which you refer, under the influence of no 
passion, no jealousy, no self-seeking, no ” 


LOVE AND WAR. 


91 


“ Perhaps a deeper search might discover in you each 
and all of the bosom-sins you so stoutly abjure,” inter- 
rupted Dorothy. “But it is needless for you to defend 
yourself to me; I am not your judge.” 

“So much the better for me!” returned Richard; “I 
should else have an unjust as well as severe one. I, on 
my part, hope the day may come when you will find 
something to repent of in such harshness towards an old 
friend whom you choose to think in the wrong.” 

“ Richard Heywood, God is my witness it is no choice 
of mine. I have no choice : what else is there to think ? 
I know well enough what you and your father are about. 
But there is nothing save my own conscience and my 
mother’s love I would not part with to be able to believe 
you honorably right in your own eyes — not in mine — God 
forbid ! That can never be — not until fair is foul and 
foul is fair.” 

So saying, she held out her hand. 

“God be between thee and me, Dorothy!” said Rich- 
ard with solemnity, as he took it in his. 

He spoke with a voice that seemed to him far away 
and not his own. Until now he had never realized the 
idea of a final separation between him and Dorothy ; and 
even now, he could hardly believe she was in earnest, 
but felt, rather, like a child whose nurse threatens to for- 
sake him on the dark road, and who begins to weep only 
from the pitiful imagination of the thing and not any 
actual fear of her carrying the threat into execution. 
The idea of retaining her love by ceasing to act on his 
convictions — the very possibility of it — had never crossed 
the horizon of his thoughts. Had it come to him — the 
merest intellectual notion, he would have perceived at 
once, of such a loyal stock did he come, and so loyal 
had he himself been to truth all his days, that to act 
upon her convictions instead of his own, would have 


92 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


been to widen a gulf at least measurable, to one infinite 
and impassable. 

She withdrew the hand which had solemnly pressed 
his, and left the room. For a moment he stood gazing 
after her. Even in that moment, the vague fear that she 
would not come again grew to a plain conviction, and 
forcibly repressing the misery that rose in bodily pres- 
ence from his heart to his throat, he left the house, hur- 
ried down the pleached alley to the old sundial, threw 
himself on the grass under the yews, and wept and 
longed for war. 

But war was not to be just yet. Autumn withered 
and sank into winter. The rain came down on the 
stubble, and the red cattle waded through red mire to 
and from their pasture ; the skies grew pale above, and 
the earth grew bare beneath ; the winds grew sharp and 
seemed unfriendly ; the brooks ran foaming to the rivers, 
and the rivers ran roaring to the ocean. Then the earth 
dried a little, and the frost came and swelled and hard- 
ened it ; the snow fell and lay, vanished and came again. 
But even out of the depth of winter, quivered airs and 
hints of spring, until at last the mighty weakling was 
born. And all this time rumor beat the alarm of war, 
and men were growing harder and more determined on 
both sides — some from self-opinion, some from party- 
spirit, some from prejudice, antipathy, animosity, some 
from sense of duty, mingled more and less with the 
alloys of impulse and advantage. But he who was most 
earnest on the one side was least aware that he who was 
most earnest on the other was honest as himself. To 
confess uprightness in one of the opposite party, seemed 
to most men to involve treachery to their own; or if 
they were driven to the confession, it was too often fol- 
lowed with an attempt at discrediting the noblest of 
human qualities. 


LOVE AND WAR. 


93 


The hearts of the two young people fared very much 
as the earth under the altered skies of winter, and 
behaved much as the divided nation. A sense of wrong 
endured kept both from feeling at first the full sorrow 
of their separation; and by the time that the tide oi 
memory had flowed back and covered the rock of of- 
fense, they had got a little used to the dullness of a day 
whence its brightest hour had been blotted. Very soon 
Dorothy learned to think of Richard as of a prodigal 
brother beyond seas, and when they chanced to meet, 
which was but seldom, he was to her as a sad ghost in a 
dream. To Richard, on the other hand she looked a 
lovely but scarce worshipful celestial, with merely might 
enough to hold his heart, swelling with a sense of wrong, 
in her hand, and squeeze it very hard. His consolation 
was that he suffered for the truth’s sake, for to decline 
action upon such insight as he had had, was a thing as 
impossible as to alter the relations between the parts of 
a sphere. Dorothy longed for peace, and the return 
of the wandering chickens of the church to the shelter 
of her wings, to be led by her about the paled yard of 
obedience, picking up the barley of righteousness ; Rich- 
ard longed for the trumpet-blast of Liberty to call her 
sons together — to a war whose battles should never cease 
until men were free to worship God after the light he 
had lighted within them, and the dragon of priestly 
authority should breathe out his last fiery breath, no 
more to drive the feebler brethren to seek refuge in the 
house of hypocrisy. 

At home Dorothy was under few influences except 
those of her mother, and, through his letters, of Mr. 
Matthew Herbert. Upon the former a lovely spiritual 
repose had long since descended. Her anxieties were 
only for her daughter, her hopes only for the world 
beyond the grave. The latter was a man of peace, who, 


94 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


having found in the ordinances of his church everything 
to aid and nothing to retard his spiritual development, 
had no conception of the nature of the puritanical oppo- 
sition to its government and rites. Through neither 
could Dorothy come to any true idea of the questions 
which agitated the politics of both church and state. 
To her the king was a kind of demigod, and every priest 
a fountain of truth. Her religion was the sedate and 
dutiful acceptance of obedient innocence, a thing of 
small account indeed where it is rooted only in sentiment 
and customary preference, but of inestimable value in 
such cases as hers, where action followed upon accept- 
ance. 

Richard, again, was under the quickening masterdom 
of a well-stored, active mind, a strong will, a judgment 
that sought to keep its balance even, and whose de- 
scended scale never rebounded, a conscience which, 
through all the mists of human judgment, eyed ever the 
blotted glimmer of some light beyond; and all these 
elements of power were gathered in his own father, in 
whom the customary sternness of the puritan parent had 
at length blossomed in confidence, a phase of love which 
to such a mind as Richard’s was even more enchanting 
than tenderness. To be trusted by such a father, to feel 
his mind and soul present with him and acknowledging 
him a fit associate in great hopes and noble aims, was 
surely, and ought to be, whatever the sentimentalist may 
say, some comfort for any sorrow a youth is capable of, 
such being in general only too lightly remediable. I 
wonder if any mere youth ever suffered, from a disap- 
pointment in love, half the sense of cureless pain which, 
with one protracted pang, gnaws at the heart of the 
avaricious old man who has dropt a sovereign into his 
draw-well. 

But the relation of Dorothy and Richard, although 


LOVE AND WAR. 


95 


ordinary in outward appearance, was of no common 
kind ; and while these two thus fell apart from each 
other in their outer life, each judging the other insensible 
to the call of highest rectitude, neither of them knew 
how much his or her heart was confident of the other’s 
integrity. In respect of them, the lovely simile, in 
Christabel , of the parted cliffs, may be carried a little 
farther, for, under the dreary sea flowing between them, 
the rock was one still. Such a faith may sometimes, 
perhaps often does, lie in the heart like a seed buried 
beyond the reach of the sun, thoroughly alive though 
giving no sign: to grow too soon might be to die. 
Things had indeed gone farther with Dorothy and Rich- 
ard, but the lobes of their loves had never been fairly 
exposed to the sun and wind ere the swollen clods of 
winter again covered them. 

Once, in the cold noon of a lovely day of frost, when 
the lightest step crackled with the breaking of multitudi- 
nous crystals, when the trees were fringed with furry 
white, and the old spider-webs glimmered like filigrane 
of fairy silver, they met on a lonely country-road. The 
sun shone red through depths of half frozen vapor, and 
tinged the whiteness of death with a faint warmth of 
feeling and hope. Along the rough lane Richard walked 
reading what looked like a letter, but was a copy his 
father had procured of a poem still only in manuscript — 
the Lycidas of Milton. In the glow to which the alter- 
nating hot and cold winds of enthusiasm and bereave- 
ment had fanned the fiery particle within him, Richard 
was not only able to understand and enjoy the thought 
of which the poem was built, but was borne aloft on its 
sad yet hopeful melodies as upon wings of an upsoaring 
seraph. The flow of his feeling suddenly broken by an 
almost fierce desire to share with Dorothy the tenderness 
of the magic music of the stately monody, and then, ere 


96 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


the answering waves of her emotion had subsided, to 
whisper to her that the marvelous spell came from the 
heart of the same wonderful man from whose brain had 
issued, like Pallas from Jove’s, —what ? — Animadversions 
upon The Remonstrants Defence against Smectymnuus , — 
the pamphlet which had so roused all the abhorrence 
her nature was capable of — he lifted his head and saw 
her but a few paces from him. Dorothy caught a glimpse 
of a countenance radiant with feeling, and eyes flashing 
through a watery film of delight ; her own eyes fell ; she 
said “ Good morning, Richard !” and passed him without 
deflecting an inch. The bird of song folded its wings 
and called in its shining; the sun lost half his red beams ; 
the sprinkled seed pearls vanished, and ashes covered 
the earth ; he folded the paper, laid it in the breast of 
his doublet, and walked home through the glittering 
meadows with a fresh hurt in his heart. 

Dorothy’s time and thoughts were all but occupied 
with the nursing of her mother, who, contrary to the 
expectation of her friends, outlived the winter, and 
revived as the spring drew on. She read much to her. 
Some of the best books had drifted into the house and 
settled there, but, although English printing was now 
nearly two centuries old, they were not many. We must 
not therefore imagine however that the two ladies were 
ill supplied with spiritual pabulum. There are few 
houses of the present day in which, though there be ten 
times as many books, there is so much strong food ; if 
there was any lack, it was rather of diluents. Amongst 
those she read were Queen Elizabeth’s Homilies, Hook- 
er’s Politie, Donne’s Sermons, and George Herbert’s 
Temple, to the dying lady only less dear than her New 
Testament. But even with this last it was only through 
sympathy with her mother that Dorothy could come into 
any contact. The gems of the mind which alone could 


LOVE AND WAR. 


97 


catch and reflect such light, lay as yet deep under the 
soil, and much ploughing and breaking of the clods was 
needful ere they could come largely to the surface. 
But happily for Dorothy, there were amongst the books 
a few of those precious little quartos of Shakspere, the 
first three books of the Faerie Queene, and the Countess 
of Pembroke’s Arcadia, then much read, if we may judge 
from the fact that, although it was not published till 
after the death of Sidney, the eighth edition of it had 
now been nearly ten years in lady Vaughan’s possession. 

Then there was in the drawing room an old spinnet, 
sadly out of tune, on which she would yet, in spite of the 
occasional jar and shudder of respondent nerves, now and 
then play at a sitting all the little music she had learned, 
and with whose help she had sometimes even tried to 
find out an air for words that had taken her fancy. 

Also, she had the house to look after, the live stock to 
see to, her dog to play with and teach, a few sad 
thoughts and memories to discipline, a call now and then 
from a neighbor or a longer visit from some old friend 
of her mother’s to receive, and the few cottagers on all 
that was left of the estate of Wyfern to care for; so that 
her time was tolerably filled up, and she felt little need 
of anything more to occupy at least her hours and days. 

Meanwhile, through all nature’s changes, through calm 
and tempest, rain and snow, through dull refusing win- 
ter, and the first passing visits of open-handed spring, 
the hearts of men were awaiting the outburst of the 
thunder, the blue peaks of whose cloud-built cells had 
long been visible on the horizon of the future. Every 
now and then they would start and listen, and ask each 
other was it the first growl of the storm, or but the 
rumbling of the wheels of the government. To the 
dwellers in Raglan Castle it seemed at least a stormy 
sign — of which the news reached them in the dull 

E 


98 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


November weather — that the parliament had set a guard 
upon Worcester House in the Strand, and searched it for 
persons suspected of high treason — Lord Herbert, doubt- 
less, first of all, the direction and strength of whose 
political drift, suspicious from the first because of his 
religious persuasion, could hardly be any longer doubt- 
ful to the most liberal of its members. 

The news of the terrible insurrection of the Catholics 
in Ireland followed. 

Richard kept his armor bright, his mare in good fettle, 
himself and his men in thorough exercise, read and 
talked with his father, and waited, sometimes with 
patience, sometimes without. 

At length in the early spring, the king withdrew to 
York, and a body-guard of the gentlemen of the neigh- 
borhood gathered around him. Richard renewed the 
flints of his carbine and pistols. 

In April, the king, refused entrance into the town of 
Hull, proclaimed the governor a traitor. The parlia- 
ment declared the proclamation a breach of its privileges. 
Richard got new girths. 

The summer passed in various disputes. Towards its 
close the governor of Portsmouth declined to act upon a 
commission to organize the new levies of the parliament, 
and administered instead an oath of allegiance to the 
garrison and inhabitants. Thereupon the place was 
besieged by Essex; the king proclaimed him a traitor, 
and the parliament retorted by declaring the royal 
proclamation a libel. Richard had his mare new-shod. 

On a certain day in August, the royal standard, with 
the motto, “ Give to Caesar his due,” was set up at 
Nottingham. Richard mounted his mare, and taking 
leave of his father, led Stopchase and nineteen men 
more, all fairly mounted, to offer his services to the par- 
liament, as represented by the earl of Essex. 


CHAPTER X. 

Dorothy’s refuge. 

W ITH the decay of summer, lady Vaughan began 
again to sink, and became at length so weak that 
Dorothy rarely left her room. The departure of Richard 
Heywood to join the rebels affected her deeply. The 
report of the utter rout of the parliamentary forces at 
Edgehill, lighted up her face for the last time with a 
glimmer of earthly gladness, which the very different 
news that followed, speedily extinguished ; and after that 
she declined more rapidly. Mrs. Rees told Dorothy 
that she would yield to the first frost. But she lingered 
many weeks. One morning she signed to her daughter 
to come nearer, that she might speak to her. 

“ Dorothy,” she whispered, “ I wish much to see good 
Mr. Herbert. Prithee, send for him. I know it is an 
evil time for him to travel, being an old man and feeble, 
but he will do his endeavor to come to me, I know, if 
but for my husband’s sake, whom he loved like a brother. 
I cannot die in peace without first taking counsel with 
him how best to provide for the safety of my little ewe- 
lamb until these storms are overblown. Alas! alas! I 

did look to Richard Heywood ” 

She could say no more. 

“ Do not take thought about the morrow for me any 
more than you would for yourself, madam,” said Doro* 
thy. “You know Master Herbert says the one is as the 
other.” 

She kissed her mother’s hand as she spoke, then 


L.cfC. 


100 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


hastened from the room, and dispatched a messenger to 
Llangattock. 

Before the worthy man arrived, lady Vaughan was 
speechless. By signs and looks, definite enough, and 
more eloquent than words, she committed Dorothy to 
his protection, and died. 

Dorothy behaved with much calmness. She would 
not, in her mother’s absence, act so as would have 
grieved her presence. Little passed between her and 
Mr. Herbert until the funeral was over. Then they 
talked of the future. Her guardian wished much to 
leave everything in charge of the old bailiff, and take 
her with him to Llangattock; but he hesitated a little 
because of the bad state of the roads in winter, much 
because of their danger in the troubled condition of 
affairs, and most of all because of the uncertain, indeed 
perilous position of the episcopalian clergy, who might 
soon find themselves without a roof to shelter them. 
Fearing nothing for himself, he must yet, in arranging 
for Dorothy, contemplate the worst of threatening possi- 
bilities ; and one thing was pretty certain, that matters 
must grow far worse before they could even begin to 
mend. 

But they had more time for deliberation given them 
than they would willingly have taken. Mr. Herbert had 
caught cold while reading the funeral service, and was 
compelled to delay his return. The cold settled into a 
sort of low fever, and for many weeks he lay helpless. 
During this time, the sudden affair at Brentford took 
place, after which the king, having lost by it far more 
than he had gained, withdrew to Oxford, anxious to 
reopen the treaty which the battle had closed. 

The country was now in a sad state. Whichever 
party was uppermost in any district, sought to ruin all of 
the opposite faction. Robbery and plunder became 


DOROTHY'S REFUGE. 


101 


common, and that not only on the track of armies or the 
route of smaller bodies of soldiers, for bands of mere 
marauders, taking up the cry of the faction that happen- 
ed in any neighborhood to have the ascendency, plun- 
dered houses, robbed travelers, and were guilty of all 
sorts of violence. Hence it had become as perilous to 
stay at home in an unfortified house as to travel; and 
many were the terrors which during the winter tried the 
courage of the girl, and checked the recovery of the old 
man. At length one morning after a midnight alarm, 
Mr. Herbert thus addressed Dorothy, as she waited 
upon him with his breakfast: 

“ It fears me much, my dear Dorothy, that the time 
will be long ere any but fortified places will be safe 
abodes. It is a question in my mind whether it would 

not be better to seek refuge for you . But stay ; let 

me suggest my proposal rather than startle you with 
it in sudden form complete. You are related to the 
Somersets, are you not?” 

“Yes — distantly.” 

“Is the relationship recognized by them?” 

“I cannot tell, sir. I do not even distinctly know 
what the relationship is. And assuredly, sir, you mean 
not to propose that I should seek safety from bodily 
peril with a household which is, to say the least, so 
unfriendly to the doctrines you and my blessed mother 
have always taught me! You cannot, or indeed, must 
you not have forgotten that they are papists?” 

Dorothy had been educated in such a fear of the 
catholics, and such a profound disapproval of those of 
their doctrines rejected by the reformers of the church 
of England, as was only surpassed in intensity by her 
absolute abhorrence of the assumptions and negations of 
the puritans. These indeed roused in her a certain 
sense of disgust which she had never felt in respect of 


102 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


what were considered by her teachers the most erroneous 
doctrines of the catholics. But Mr. Herbert, although 
his prejudices were nearly as strong, and his opinions, if 
not more indigenous at least far better acclimatised than 
hers, had yet reaped this advantage of a longer life that 
he was better able to atone his dislike of certain opinions 
with personal regard for those who held them, and 
therefore did not, like Dorothy, recoil from the idea of 
obligation to one of a different creed — provided always 
that creed was Catholicism and not puritanism. For to 
the church of England, the catholics, in the presence of 
her more rampant foes, appeared harmless enough now. 

He believed that the honorable feelings of lord 
Worcester and his family would be hostile to any at- 
tempt to proselytize his ward. But as far as she was 
herself concerned, he trusted more to the strength of 
her prejudices than the rectitude of her convictions, 
honest as the girl was, to prevent her from being over- 
influenced by the change of spiritual atmosphere ; for in 
proportion to the simplicity of her goodness must be her 
capacity for recognizing the goodness of others, catholics 
or not, and for being wrought upon by the virtue that 
went out from them. His hope was, that England 
would have again become the abode of peace, long ere 
any risk to her spiritual well-being should have been 
incurred by this mode of securing her bodily safety and 
comfort. 

But there was another fact, in the absence of which 
he would have had far more hesitation in seeking for his 
ewe-lamb the protection of sheep the guardians of whose 
spiritual fold had but too often proved wolves in sheep- 
dogs’ clothing : within the last few days the news had 
reached him that an old friend named Bayly, a true 
man, a priest of the English church and a doctor in 
divinity, had taken up his abode in Raglan Castle as one 


DOROTHY'S REFUGE. 


103 


of the household — chaplain indeed, as report would have 
it, though that was hard of belief, save indeed it were 
for the sake of the protestants within its walls. However 
that might be, there was a true shepherd to whose care 
to entrust his lamb ; and it was mainly on the strength 
of this consideration, that he had concluded to make his 
proposal to Dorothy — namely, that she should seek shel- 
ter within the walls of Raglan castle until the storm 
should be so far overblown as to admit either of her 
going to Llangattock or returning to her own home. 
He now discussed the matter with her in full, and, 
notwithstanding her very natural repugnance to the 
scheme, such was Dorothy’s confidence in her friend 
that she was easily persuaded of its wisdom. What the 
more inclined her to yield was that Mr. Heywood had 
written her a letter, hardly the less unwelcome for the 
kindness of its tone, in which he offered her the shelter 
and hospitality of Redware “until better days.” 

“Better days!” exclaimed Dorothy with contempt. 
“If such days as he would count better should ever 
arrive, his house is the last place where I would have 
them find me !” 

She wrote a polite but cold refusal, and rejoiced in 
the hope that he would soon hear of her having sought 
and found refuge in Raglan, with the friends of the king. 

Meanwhile Mr. Herbert had opened communication 
with Dr. Bayly, had satisfied himself that he was still a 
true son of the church, and had solicited his friendly 
mediation towards the receiving of mistress Dorothy 
Vaughan into the family of the marquis of Worcester, to 
the dignity of which title the earl had now been raised, 
the parliament, to be sure, declining to acknowledge the 
patent conferred by his majesty, but that was of no 
consequence in the estimation of those chiefly concerned. 

On a certain spring-morning then, the snow still lying 


104 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


in the hollows of the hills, Thomas Bayly came to Wyfern 
to see his old friend Matthew Herbert. He was a 
courteous little man, with a courtesy librating on a 
knife-edge of deflection towards obsequiousness on the 
one hand and condescension on the other, for neither of 
which, however, was his friend Herbert an object. His 
eye was keen, and his forehead good, but his carriage 
inclined to the pompous, and his speech to the formal, 
ornate, and prolix. The shape of his mouth was honest, 
but in the closure of the lips indicated self-importance. 
The greeting between them was simple and genuine, and 
ere they parted, Bayly had promised to do his best in 
representing the matter to the marquis, his daughter-in- 
law, lady Margaret, the wife of lord Herbert, and his 
daughter, lady Anne, who, although the most rigid cath- 
olic in the house, was already the doctor’s special friend. 

It would have been greatly unlike the marquis or any 
of his family to refuse such a prayer. Had not their 
house been for centuries the abode of hospitality, the 
embodiment of shelter? On the mere representation of 
Dr. Bayly, and the fact of the relationship, which, 
although distant, was well enough known, within two 
days Mrs. Dorothy Vaughan received an invitation to 
enter the family of the marquis, as one of the gentle- 
women of lady Margaret’s suite. It was of course grate- 
fully accepted, and as soon as Mr. Herbert thought 
himself sufficiently recovered to encounter the fatigues 
of traveling, he urged on the somewhat laggard prepara- 
tions of Dorothy, that he might himself see her safely 
housed on his way to Llangattock, whither he was most 
anxious to return. 

It was a lovely spring morning when they set out 
together on horseback for Raglan. The sun looked 
down like a young father upon his earth-mothered chil- 
dren, peeping out of their beds to greet him after the 


DOROTHY'S REFUGE. 


105 


long winter-night. The rooks were too busy to caw, 
dibbling deep in the soft red earth with their great 
beaks. The red cattle, flaked with white, spotted the 
clear fresh green of the meadows. The bare trees had 
a kind of glory about them, like old men waiting for 
their youth, which might come suddenly. A few slow 
clouds were drifting across the pale sky. A gentle wind 
was blowing over the wet fields, but when a cloud 
swept before the sun, it blew cold. The roads were 
bad, but their horses were used to such, and picked 
their way with the easy carefulness of experience. The 
winter might yet return for a season, but this day was of 
the spring and its promises. Earth and air, field and 
sky were full of peace. But the heart of England was 
troubled — troubled with passions both good and evil — 
with righteous indignation and unholy scorn, with the 
love of liberty and the joy of license, with ambition and 
aspiration. 

No honest heart could yield long to the comforting of 
the fair world, knowing that some of her fairest fields 
would soon be crimsoned afresh with the blood of her 
children. But Dorothy’s sadness was not all for her 
country in general. Had she put the question honestly 
to her heart, she must have confessed that even the loss 
of her mother had less to do with a certain weight upon 
it which the loveliness of the spring day seemed to 
render the heavier, than the rarely absent feeling rather 
than thought, that the playmate of her childhood, and 
the offered lover of her youth, had thrown himself with 
all the energy of dawning manhood, into the quarrel of 
the lawless and self-glorifying. Nor was she altogether 
free from a sense of blame in the matter. Had she been 
less imperative in her mood and bearing, more ready to 
give than to require sympathy, — but ah ! she could not 
change the past, and the present was calling upon her. 


106 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


At length the towers of Raglan appeared, and a pang 
of apprehension shot through her bosom. She was ap- 
proaching the unknown. Like one on the verge of a 
second-sight, her history seemed for a moment about to 
reveal itself — where it lay, like a bird in its egg, within 
those massive walls, warded by those huge ascending 
towers. Brought up in a retirement that some would 
have counted loneliness, and, although used to all gentle 
and refined ways, yet familiar with homeliness and sim- 
plicity of mode and ministration, she could not help 
feeling awed at the prospect of entering such a zone of 
rank and stateliness and observance as the household of 
the marquis, who lived like a prince in expenditure, 
attendance, and ceremony. She knew little of the fash- 
ions of the day, and like many modest young people, 
was afraid she might be guilty of some solecism which 
would make her appear ill-bred, or at least awkward. 
Since her mother left her, she had become aware of a 
timidity to which she had hitherto been a stranger. 
“Ah!” she said to herself, “if only my mother were 
with me !” 

At length they reached the brick gate, were admitted 
within the outer wall, and, following the course taken by 
Scudamore and Heywood, skirted the moat which en- 
ringed the huge blind citadel or keep, and arrived at the 
western gate. The portcullis rose to admit them, and 
they rode into the echoes of the vaulted gateway. Turn- 
ing to congratulate Dorothy on their safe arrival, Mr. 
Herbert saw that she was pale and agitated. 

“What ails my child?” he said in a low voice, for the 
warder was near. 

“I feel as if entering a prison,” she replied with a 
shiver. 

“Is thy God the God of the grange and not of the 
castle ?” returned the old man. 


DOROTHY'S REFUGE . 


10 ? 


“ But, sir,” said Dorothy, “ 1 have been accustomed to 
a liberty such as few have enjoyed, and these walls and 
towers ” 

“ Heed not the look of things,” interrupted her guard- 
ian. “ Believe in the Will that with a thought can 
turn the shadow of death into the morning, give gladness 
for weeping, and the garment of praise for the spirit of 
heaviness.” 


CHAPTER XL 


RAGLAN CASTLE. 

W HILE he yet spoke, their horses, of then own 
accord, passed through the gate which Eccles 
had thrown wide to fdmit them, and carried them into 
the Fountain court. Here, indeed, was a change of 
aspect ! All that Dorothy had hitherto contemplated 
was the side of the fortress which faced the world — 
frowning and defiant, although here and there on the 
point of breaking into a half smile, for the grim, sus- 
picious, altogether repellant look of the old feudal castle 
had been gradually vanishing in the additions and alter- 
ations of more civilized times. But now they were in 
the heart of the building, and saw the face which the 
house of strength turned upon its own people. The 
spring suushine filled half the court; over the rest lay 
the shadow of the huge keep towering massive above 
the three-storied line of building which formed the side 
next it. Here was the true face of the Janus-building, 
full of eyes and mouths; for many bright windows 
looked down into the court, in some of which shone the 
smiling faces of children and ladies peeping out to see 
the visitors, whose arrival had been announced by the 
creaking chains of the portcullis; and by the doors 
issued and entered, here a lady in rich attire, there a 
gentleman half in armor, and here again a serving man 
or maid. Nearly in the center of the quadrangle, just 
outside the shadow of the keep, stood the giant horse, 
rearing in white marble, almost dazzling in the sunshine, 


RAGLAN CASTLE. 


109 


from whose nostrils spouted the jets of water which gave 
it? name to the court. Opposite the gate by which they 
entered, was the little chapel, with its triple lancet 
windows, over which lay the picture gallery, with its 
large oriel lights. Far above their roof, ascended from 
behind that of the great hall, with its fine lantern window 
seated on the ridge. From the other court beyond the 
hall, that upon which the main entrance opened, came 
the sounds of heavy feet in intermittent but measured 
tread, the clanking of arms, and a returning voice of 
loud command : the troops of the garrison were being 
exercised on the slabs of the pitched court. 

From each of the many doors opening into the court 
they had entered, a path, paved with colored tiles, led 
straight through the finest of turf to the marble fountain 
in the center, into whose shadowed basin the falling 
water seemed to carry captive, as into a prison, the 
sunlight it caught above. Its music as it fell made a 
lovely but strange and sad contrast with the martial 
sounds from beyond. 

It was but a moment they had to note these things ; 
eyes and ears gathered them all at once. Two of the 
warder’s men already held their horses, while two other 
men, responsive to the warder’s whistle, came running 
from the hall and helped them to dismount. Hardly 
had they reached the ground ere a man-servant came, 
who led the way to the left towards a porch of carved 
stone on the same side of the court. The door stood 
open, revealing a flight of stairs, rather steep, but wide 
and stately, going right up between two straight walls. 
At the top stood lady Margaret’s gentleman usher, Mr. 
Harcourt by name, who received them with much cour- 
tesy, and conducting them to a small room on the left of 
the landing, went to announce their arrival to lady 
Margaret, to whose private parlor this was the ante* 


110 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


chamber. Returning in a moment, he led them into her 
presence. 

She received them with a frankness which almost 
belied the stateliness of her demeanor. Through the 
haze of that reserve which a consciousness of dignity, 
whether true or false, so often generates, the genial 
courtesy of her Irish nature, for she was an O’Brien, 
daughter of the earl of Thomond, shone clear, and justi- 
fied her Celtic origin. 

“Welcome, cousin!” she said, holding out her hand 
while yet distant half the length of the room, across 
which, upborne on slow firm foot, she advanced with 
even, stately motion. “And you also, reverend sir,” she 
went on, turning to Mr. Herbert. “I am told we are 
indebted to you for this welcome addition to our family 
— how welcome none can tell but ladies shut up like 
ourselves.” 

Dorothy was already almost at her ease, and the old 
clergyman soon found lady Margaret so sensible as 
well as courteous — prejudiced yet further in her favor, 
it must be confessed, by the pleasant pretense she made 
of claiming cousinship on the ground of the identity of 
her husband’s title with his surname — that, ere he left 
the castle, liberal as he had believed himself, he was 
nevertheless astonished to find how much of friendship 
had in that brief space been engendered in his bosom 
towards a catholic lady whom he had never before seen. 

Since the time of Elizabeth, when the fear and repug- 
nance of the nation had been so greatly and justly 
excited by the apparent probability of a marriage betwixt 
their queen and the detested Philip of Spain, a consid- 
erable alteration had been gradually wrought in the 
feelings of a large portion of it in respect of their catho- 
lic countrymen — a fact which gave strength to the posi- 
tion of the puritans in asserting the essential identity of 


RAGLAN CASTLE. 


Ill 


episcopalian with catholic politics. Almost forty years 
had elapsed since the gunpowder plot ; the queen was a 
catholic; the episcopalian party was itself at length 
endangered by the extension and development of the 
very principles on which they had themselves broken 
away from the church of Rome ; and the catholics were 
friendly to the government of the king, under which 
their condition was one of comfort if not influence, 
while under that of the parliament they had every reason 
to anticipate a revival of persecution. Not a few of 
them doubtless cherished the hope that this revelation 
of the true spirit of dissent would result in driving the 
king and his party back into the bosom of the church. 

The king, on the other hand, while only too glad to 
receive what aid he might from the loyal families of the 
old religion, yet saw that much caution was necessary 
lest he should alienate the most earnest of his protestant 
friends by giving ground for the suspicion that he was 
inclined to purchase their cooperation by a return to the 
creed of his Scottish grandmother, Mary Stuart, and his 
English great-great grandmother, Margaret Tudor. 

On the part of the clergy there had been for some 
time a considerable tendency, chiefly from the influence 
of Laud, to cultivate the same spirit which actuated the 
larger portion of the catholic priesthood ; and although 
this had never led to retrogade movement in regard to 
their politics, the fact that both were accounted by a 
third party, and that far the most dangerous to either of 
the other two, as in spirit and object one and the same, 
naturally tended to produce a more indulgent regard of 
each other than had hitherto prevailed. And hence, in 
part, it was that it had become possible for episcopalian 
Dr. Bayly to be an inmate of Raglan Castle, and for 
good protestant, Matthew Herbert, to seek refuge for his 
ward with good catholic, lady Margaret. 


m 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


Eager to return to the duties of his parish, through 
his illness so long neglected, Mr. Herbert declined her 
ladyship’s invitation to dinner, which, she assured him, 
consulting a watch that she wore in a ring on her little 
finger, must be all but ready, seeing it was now a quarter 
to eleven, and took his leave, accompanied by Dorothy’s 
servant to bring back the horse — if indeed they should 
be fortunate enough to escape the requisition of both 
horses by one party or the other. At present, however, 
the king’s affairs continued rather on the ascendant, and 
the name of the marquis in that country was as yet a 
tower of strength. Dorothy’s horse was included in the 
hospitality shown his mistress, and taken to the stables — 
under the midday shadow of the Library tower. 

As soon as the parson was gone, lady Margaret touched 
a small silver bell which hung in a stand on the table 
beside her. 

“Conduct Mistress Dorothy Vaughan to her room, 
wait upon her there, and then attend her hither,” she 
said to the maid who answered it. “I would request a 
little not unneedful haste, cousin,” she went on, “ for my 
lord of Worcester is very precise in all matters of house- 
hold order, and likes ill to see any one enter the dining 
room after he is seated. It is his desire that you should 
dine at his table to-day. After this I must place you 
with the rest of my ladies, who dine in the housekeeper’s 
room.” 

“As you think proper, madam,” returned Dorothy, a 
little disappointed, but a little relieved also. 

“The bell will ring presently,” said lady Margaret, 
“and a quarter of an hour thereafter we shall all be 
seated.” 

She was herself already dressed — in a pale blue satin, 
with full skirt, and close-fitting, long-peaked bodice, 
fastened in front by several double clasps set with 


RAGLAN CASTLE . 


113 


rubies ; her shoulders were bare, and her sleeves looped 
up with large round star-like studs, set with diamonds, 
so that her arms also were bare to the elbows. Round 
her neck was a short string of large pearls. 

“You take no long time to attire yourself, cousin,” 
said her ladyship kindly, when Dorothy returned. 

“Little time was needed, madam,” answered Dorothy; 
“ for me there is but one color. I fear I shall show but 
a dull bird amidst the gay plumage of Raglan. But I 
could have better adorned myself had not I heard the 
bell ere I had begun, and feared to lose your ladyship’s 
company, and in very deed make my first appearance 
before my lord as a transgressor of the laws of his house- 
hold.” 

“You did well, cousin Dorothy; for everything goes 
by law and order here. All is reason and rhyme too in 
this house. My lord’s father, although one of the best 
and kindest of men, is, as I said, somewhat precise, and 
will, as he says himself, be king in his own kingdom — 
thinking doubtless of one who is not such. I should 
not talk thus with you, cousin, were you like some 
young ladies I know ; but there is that about you which 
pleases me greatly, and which I take to indicate discre- 
tion. When first I came to the house, not having been 
accustomed to so severe a punctuality, I gave my lord 
no little annoyance; for, oftener than once or twice, I 
walked into his dining-room not only after grace had 
been said, but after the first course had been sent down 
to the hall-tables. My lord took his revenge in calling 
me the wild Irishwoman.” 

Here she laughed very sweetly. 

“The only one,” she resumed, “who does here as he 
will, is my husband. Even lord Charles, who is governor 
of the castle, must be in his place to the moment ; but: 
for my husband, ” 


114 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


The bell rang a second time. Lady Margaret rose, 
and taking Dorothy’s arm, led her from the room into a 
long dim-lighted corridor. Arrived at the end of it, 
where a second passage met it at right angles, she 
stopped at a door facing them. 

“ I think we shall find my lord of Worcester here,” 
she said in a whisper, as she knocked and waited a 
response. “He is not here,” she said. “He expects 
me to call on him as I pass. We must make haste.” 

The second passage, in which were several curves and 
sharp turns, led them to a large room, nearly square, in 
which were two tables covered for about thirty. By the 
door, and along the sides of the room were a good many 
gentlemen, some of them very plainly dressed, and others 
in gayer attire, amongst whom Dorothy, as they passed 
through, recognized her cousin Scudamore. Whether 
he saw and knew her she could not tell. Crossing a 
small antechamber, they entered the drawing-room, where 
stood and sat talking a number of ladies and gentlemen, 
to some of whom lady Margaret spoke and presented 
her cousin, greeting others with a familiar nod or smile, 
and yet others with a stately courtesy. Then she said, 

“ Ladies, I will lead the way to the dining-room. My 
lord marquis would the less willingly have us late that 
something detains himself.” 

Those who dined in the marquis's room followed her. 
Scarcely had she reached the upper end of the table 
when the marquis entered, followed by all his gentlemen, 
some of whom withdrew, their service over for the time, 
while others proceeded to wait upon him and his family, 
with any of the nobility who happened to be his guests 
at the first table. 

“ I am the laggard to-day, my lady,” he said cheerily, 
as he bore his heavy person up the room towards her. 
“Ah!” he went on, as lady Margaret stepped forward to 


RAGLAN CASTLE. 


115 


meet him, leading Dorothy by the hand, “who is this 
sober young damsel under my wild Irishwoman’s wing? 
Our young cousin Vaughan, doubtless, whose praises my 
worthy Dr. Bayly has been sounding in my ears ?” 

He held out his hand to Dorothy, and bade her wel- 
come to Raglan. 

The marquis was a man of noble countenance, of the 
type we are ready to imagine peculiar to the great men 
of the time of queen Elizabeth. To this his unwieldy 
person did not correspond, although his movements 
were still far from being despoiled of that charm which 
naturally belonged to all that was his. Nor did his 
presence owe anything to his dress, which was of that 
long-haired coarse woolen stuff they called frieze, worn, 
probably, by not another nobleman in the country, and 
regarded as fitter for a yeoman. His eyes, though he 
was yet but sixty-five or so, were already hazy, and his 
voice was husky and a little broken — results of the 
constantly poor health and frequent suffering he had 
had for many years ; but he carried it all “ with ” — to 
quote the prince of courtesy, Sir Philip Sidney — “with a 
right old man’s grace, that will seem livelier than his 
age will afford him.” 

The moment he entered, the sewer in the ante-chamber 
at the other end of the room had given a signal to one 
waiting at the head of the stair leading down to the hall, 
and his lordship was hardly seated, ere — although the 
kitchen was at the corner of the pitched court diagonally 
opposite — he bore the first dish into the room, followed 
by his assistants, laden each with another. 

Lady Margaret made Dorothy sit down by her. A 
place on her other side was vacant. 

“Where is this truant husband of thine, my lady?” 
asked the marquis, as soon as Dr. Bayly had said grace. 
“Know you whether he eats at all, or when, or where? 


116 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


It is now three days since he has filled his place at thy 
side, yet is he in the castle. Thou knowest, my lady, I 
deal not with him, who is so soon to sit in this chair, as 
with another, but I like it not. Know you what occupies 
him to-day?” 

“ I do not, my lord,” answered lady Margaret. “ I 
have had but one glimpse of him since the morning, and 
if he looks now as he looked then, I fear your lordship 
would be minded rather to drive him from your table 
than welcome him to a seat beside you.” 

As she spoke, lady Margaret caught a glimpse of a 
peculiar expression on Scudamore’s face, where he stood 
behind his master’s chair. 

“Your page, my lord,” she said, “seems to know 
something of him : if it pleased you to put him to the 
question, ” 

“ Hey, Scudamore!” said the marquis, without turning 
his head; “what have you seen of my lord Herbert?” 

“As much as could be seen of him, my lord,” 
answered Scudamore. “ He was new from the powder- 
mill and his face and hands were as he had been blown 
three times up the hall-chimney.” 

“ I would thou didst pay more heed to what is fitting, 
thou monkey, and knewest either place or time for thy 
foolish jests ! It will be long ere thou soil one of thy 
white fingers for king or country,” said the marquis, 
neither angrily nor merrily. — “ Get another flask of 
claret,” he added, “and keep thy wit for thy mates, 
boy.” 

Dorothy cast one involuntary glance at her cousin. 
His face was red as fire, but, as it seemed to her, more 
with suppressed amusement than shame. She had not 
been much longer in the castle before she learned that, 
in the opinion of the household, the marquis did his best, 
or worst rather, to ruin young Scudamore by indulgence. 


RAGLAN CASTLE. 


117 


The judgment, however, was partly the product of jeal- 
ousy, although doubtless the marquis had in his case a 
little too much relaxed the bonds of discipline. The 
youth was bright and ready, and had as yet been found 
trustworthy; his wit was tolerable, and a certain gay 
naivett of speech and manner set off to the best advan- 
tage what there was of it; but his laughter was some- 
times mischievous, and on the present occasion Dorothy 
could not rid herself of the suspicion that he was laugh- 
ing in his sleeve at his master, which caused her to 
redden in her turn. Scudamore saw it, and had his own 
fancies concerning the phenomenon. 


CHAPTER XII. 


THE TWO MARQUISES. 

D INNER over, lady Margaret led Dorothy back to 
her parlor, and there proceeded to discover what 
accomplishments and capabilities she might possess. 
Finding she could embroider, play a little on the spinnet, 
sing a song, and read aloud both intelligibly and pleas- 
antly, she came to the conclusion that the country-bred 
girl was an acquisition destined to grow greatly in value, 
should the day ever arrive — which heaven forbid ! — when 
they would have to settle down to the monotony of a 
protracted siege. Remarking, at length, that she looked 
weary, she sent her away to be mistress of her time till 
supper, at half-past five. 

Weary in truth with her journey, but still more weary 
from the multitude and variety of objects the talk, and 
the constant demand of the general strangeness upon her 
attention and one form or other of suitable response, 
Dorothy sought her chamber. But she scarcely remem- 
bered how to reach it. She knew it lay a floor higher, 
and easily found the stair up which she had followed her 
attendant, for it rose from the landing of the straight 
ascent by which she had entered the house. She could 
hardly go wrong either as to the passage at the top of it, 
leading back over the room she had just left below, but 
she could not tell which was her own door. Fearing to 
open the wrong one, she passed it and went on to the 
end of the corridor, which was very dimly lighted. 
There she came to an open door, through which she saw 


THE TWO MARQUISES. 


119 


a small chamber, evidently not meant for habitation. 
She entered. A little light came in through a crossed 
loophole, sufficient to show her the bare walls, with the 
plaster sticking out between the stones, the huge beams 
above, and in the middle of the floor, opposite the loop- 
hole, a great arblast or crossbow, with its strange 
machinery. She had never seen one before, but she 
knew enough to guess at once what it was. Through 
the loophole came a sweet breath of spring air, and she 
saw trees bending in the wind, heard their faint far-off 
rustle, and saw the green fields shining in the sun. 

Partly from having been so much with Richard, her 
only playmate, who was of an ingenious and practical 
turn, a certain degree of interest in mechanical forms 
and modes had been developed in Dorothy, sufficient at 
least to render her unable to encounter such an imple- 
ment without feeling a strong impulse to satisfy herself 
concerning its mechanism, its motion, and its action. 
Approaching it cautiously and curiously, as if it were a 
live thing, which might start up and fly from, or perhaps 
at her, for what she knew, she gazed at it for a few 
moments with eyes full of unuttered questions, then 
ventured to lay gentle hold upon what looked like a 
handle. To her dismay a wheezy bang followed, which 
seemed to shake the tower. Whether she had discharged 
an arrow, or an iron bolt, or a stone, or indeed anything 
at all, she could not tell, for she had not got so far in her 
observations as to perceive even that the bow was bent. 
Her heart gave a scared flutter, and she started back, 
not merely terrified, but ashamed also that she should 
initiate her life in the castle with meddling and mischief, 
when a low gentle laugh behind her startled her yet 
more, and looking round with her heart in her throat, she 
perceived in the half-light of the place a man by the wall 
behind the arblast watching her. Her first impulse was 


120 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


to run, and the door was open ; but she thought she owed 
an apology ere she retreated. What sort of person he 
was she could not tell, for there was not light enough to 
show a feature of his face. 

“I ask your pardon,” she said. “I fear I have done 
mischief.” 

“ Not the least,” returned the man, in a gentle voice, 
with a tone of amusement in it. 

“ I had never seen a great cross-bow,” Dorothy went 
on, anxious to excuse her meddling. “I thought this 
must be one, but I was so stupid as not to perceive it 
was bent, and that that was the — the handle — or do you 
call it the tricker? — by which you let it go.” 

The man, who had at first taken her for one of the 
maids, had by this time discovered from her tone and 
speech that she was a lady. 

“It is a clumsy, old-fashioned thing,” he returned, 
“but I shall not remove it until I can put something 
better in its place, and it would be a troublesome affair 
to get even a demi-culverin up here, not to mention the 
bad neighbor it would be to the ladies’ chambers. I 
was just making a small experiment with it on the force 
of springs. I believe I shall yet prove that much may 
be done with springs — more perhaps, and certainly at 
far less expense, than with gunpowder, which costs 
greatly, is very troublesome to make, occupies much 
space, and is always like an unstable, half-treacherous 
friend within the gates — to say nothing of the expense 
of cannon — ten times that of an engine of timber and 
springs. See what a strong chain your shot has broken ! 
Shall I show you how the thing works?” 

He spoke in a gentle, even, rapid voice, a little hesi- 
tating now and then, more, through the greater part of 
this long utterance, as if he were thinking to himself 
than addressing another. Neither his tone nor manner 


THE TWO MARQUISES. 


121 


were those of an underling, but Dorothy’s startled nerves 
had communicated their tremor to her modesty, and 
with a gentle “No, sir, I thank you; I must be gone,” 
she hurried away. 

Daring now a little more for fear of worse, the first 
door tried proved that of her own room, and it was with 
a considerable sense of relief, as well as with weariness 
and tremor, that she nestled herself into the high window- 
seat, and looked out into the quadrangle. The shadow 
of the citadel had gone to pay its afternoon visit to the 
other court, and that of the gateway was thrown upon 
the chapel, partly shrouding the white horse, whose 
watery music was now silent, but allowing one red ray, 
which entered by the iron grating above the solid gates, 
to fall on his head, and warm its cold whiteness with a 
tinge of delicate pink. The court was more still and 
silent than in the morning ; only now and then would a 
figure pass from one door to another, along the side of 
the buildings, or by one of the tiled paths dividing the 
turf. A large peacock was slowly crossing the shadowed 
grass with a stately strut and rhythmic thrust of his 
green neck. The moment he came out into the sunlight, 
he spread his wheeled fan aloft, and slowly pirouetting, 
if the word can be allowed where two legs are needful, 
in the very acme of vanity, turned on all sides the 
quivering splendor of its hundred eyes, where blue and 
green burst in the ecstasy of their union into a vapor of 
gold, that the circle of the universe might see. And 
truly the bird’s vanity had not misled his judgment : it 
was a sight to make the hearts of the angels throb out a 
dainty phrase or two more in the song of their thanks- 
giving. Some pigeons, white, and blue-gray, with a 
lovely mingling and interplay of metallic lusters on their 
feathery throats, but with none of that almost grotesque 
obtrusion of over-driven individuality of kind, in which 

F 


122 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


the graciousness of common beauty is now sacrificed to 
the whim of the fashion the vulgar fancier initiates, 
picked up the crumbs under the windows of lady Marga- 
ret’s nursery, or flew hither and thither among the roofs 
with wapping and whiffling wing. 

But still from the next court came many and various 
mingling noises. The sounds of drill had long ceased, 
but those of clanking hammers were heard the more 
clearly, now one, now two, now several together. The 
smaller, clearer one was that of the armorer, the others 
those of the great smithy, where the horse-shoes were 
made, the horses shod, the smaller pieces of ordnance 
repaired, locks and chains mended, bolts forged, and, in 
brief, every piece of metal about the castle, from the 
cook’s skillet to the winches and chains of the draw- 
bridges, set right, renewed, or replaced. The forges 
were far from where she sat, outside the farthest of the 
two courts, across which and the great hall dividing 
them, the clink, clink, the clank, and the ringing clang, 
softened by distance and interposition, came musical to 
her ear. The armorer’s hammer was the keener, the 
quicker, the less intermittent, and yet had the most 
variations of time and tone, as he shifted the piece on 
his anvil, or changed breastplate for gorget, or greave 
for pauldron — or it might be sword for pike-head or 
halbert. Mingled with it came now and then the creak 
and squeak of the wooden wheel at the draw-well near 
the hall-door in the farther court, and the muffled splash 
of the bucket as it struck the water deep in the shaft. 
She even thought she could hear the drops dripping 
back from it as it slowly ascended, but that was fancy. 
Everywhere arose the auricular vapor, as it were, of 
action, undefined and indefinable, the hum of the human 
hive, compounded of all confluent noises — the chatter of 
the servants’ hall and the nursery, the stamping of 


THE TWO MARQUISES. 


123 


horses, the ringing of harness, the ripping of the chains 
of kenneled dogs, the hollow stamping of heavy boots, 
the lowing of cattle, with sounds besides so strange to 
the ears of Dorothy that they set her puzzling in vain to 
account for them; not to mention the chaff of the 
guard-rooms by the gates, and the scolding and clatter 
of the kitchen. This last, indeed, was audible only 
when the doors were open, for the walls of the kitchen, 
whether it was that the builders of it counted cookery 
second only to life, or that this had been judged, from 
the nature of the ground outside, the corner of all the 
enclosure most likely to be attacked, were far thicker 
than those of any of the other towers, with the one 
exception of the keep itself. 

As she sat listening to these multitudinous exhalations 
of life around her, yet with a feeling of loneliness and a 
dim sense of captivity, from the consciousness that huge 
surrounding walls rose between her and the green fields, 
of which from earliest memory she had been as free as 
the birds and beetles, a white rabbit, escaped from the 
arms of its owner, little Mary Somerset, lady Margaret’s 
only child, a merry but delicate girl not yet three years 
old, suddenly darted like a flash of snow across the 
shadowy green, followed in hot haste a moment after by 
a fine-looking boy of thirteen and two younger girls, after 
whom / toddled tiny Mary. Dorothy sat watching the 
pursuit, accompanied with sweet outcry and frolic laugh- 
ter, when in a moment the sounds of their merriment 
changed to shrieks of terror, and she saw a huge mastiff 
come bounding she knew not whence, and rush straight 
at the rabbit, fierce and fast. When the little creature 
saw him, struck with terror it stopped dead, cowered on 
the sward, and was stock still. But Henry Somerset, 
who was but a few paces from it, reached it before the 
dog, and caught it up in his arms. The rush of the dog 


124 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


threw him down, and they rolled over and over, Henry 
holding fast the poor rabbit. 

By this time Dorothy was halfway down the stair ; the 
moment she caught sight of the dog she had flown to the 
rescue. When she issued from the porch at the foot of 
the grand staircase, Henry was up again, and running 
for the house with the rabbit yet safe in his arms, pur- 
sued by the mastiff. Evidently the dog had not harmed 
him — but he might get angry. The next moment she 
saw, to her joy and dismay both at once, that it was her 
own dog. 

“Marquis! Marquis!” she cried, calling him by his 
name. 

He abandoned the pursuit at once, and went bounding 
to her. She took him by the back of the neck, and the 
displeasure manifest upon the countenance of his mistress 
made him cower at her feet, and wince from the open 
hand that threatened him. The same instant a lattice 
window over the gateway was flung open, and a voice 
said : 

“ Here I am. Who called me ?” 

Dorothy looked up. The children had vanished with 
their rescued darling. There was not a creature in the 
court but herself, and there was the marquis, leaning half 
out of the window, and looking about. 

“Who called me?” he repeated — angrily, Dorothy 
thought. 

All at once the meaning of ; t flashed upon her, and 
she was confounded — ready to sink with annoyance. 
But she was not one to hesitate when a thing had to be 
done. Keeping her hold of the dog’s neck, for his collar 
was gone, she dragged him halfway towards the gate, 
then turning up to the marquis a face like a peony, 
replied — 

“ I am the culprit, my lord.” 


THE TWO MARQUISES. 


125 


“ By St. George ! you are a brave damsel, and there is 
no culpa that I know of, except on the part of that 
intruding cur.” 

“And the cur’s mistress, my lord. But, indeed, he is 
no cur, but a true mastiff.” 

“ What ! is the animal thy property, fair cousin ? He 
is more than I bargained for.” 

“ He is mine, my lord, but I left him chained when 1 
set out from Wyfern this morning. That he got loose I 
confess I am not astonished, neither that he tracked me 
hither, for he has the eyes of a gaze-hound, and the nose 
of a bloodhound ; but it amazes me to find him in the 
castle.” 

“That must be inquired into,” said the marquis. 

“ I am very sorry he has carried himself so ill, my lord. 
He has put me to great shame. But he hath more in 
him than mere brute, and understands when I beg you 
to pardon him. He misbehaved himself on purpose to 
be taken to me, for at home no one ever dares punish 
him but myself.” 

The marquis laughed. 

“ If you are so completely his mistress then, why did 
you call on me for help ?” 

“ Pardon me, my lord; I did not so.” 

“Why, I heard thee call me two or three times!” 

“Alas, my lord ! I called him Marquis when he was a 
pup. Everybody about Redware knows Marquis.” 

The animal cocked his ears and started each time his 
name was uttered, and yet seemed to understand well 
enough that all the talk was about him and his mis- 
deeds. 

“Ah ! ha !” said his lordship, with a twinkle in his eye, 
“ that begets complications. Two marquises in Raglan? 
Two kings in England ! The thing cannot be. What 
is to be done?” 


126 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


“ I must take him back, my lord. I cannot send him, 
for he would not go. I dread they will not be able to 
hold him chained ; in which evil case I fear me I shall 
have to go, my lord, and take the perils of the time as 
they come.” 

“ Not of necessity so, cousin, while you can choose 
between us ; although I freely grant that a marquis with 
four legs is to be preferred before a marquis with only 
two. But what if you changed his name ?” 

“ I fear it could not be done, my lord. He has been 
Marquis all his life.” 

“And I have been marquis, only six months ! Clearly 
he hath the better right. But there would be constant 
mistakes between us, for I cannot bring myself to lay 
aside the honor his majesty hath conferred upon me, 
‘ which would be worn now in its newest gloss, not cast 
aside so soon,’ as Master Shakspere says. Besides it 
would be a slight to his majesty, and that must not be 
thought of — not for all 'the dogs in parliament or out of 
it. No. It would breed factions in the castle too. No ; 
one of us two must die.” 

“ Then, indeed, I must go,” said Dorothy, her voice 
trembling as she spoke, for although the words of the 
marquis were merry she yet feared for her friend. 

“Tut! tut! let the older marquis die: he has enjoyed 
the title ; I have not. Give him to Tom Fool: he will 
drown him in the moat. He shall be buried with honor 
— under his rival’s favorite apple-tree in the orchard. 
What more could dog desire?” 

“No, my lord,” answered Dorothy. “Will you allow 
me to take my leave ? If I only knew where to find my 
horse !” 

“ What ! would you saddle him yourself, cousin 
Vaughan?” 

“As well as e’er a knave in your lordship’s stables. I 


THE TWO MARQUISES. 127 

am very sorry to displease you, but to my dog’s death I 
cannot and will not consent. Pardon me, my lord.” 

The last words brought with them a stifled sob, for 
she scarcely doubted any more that he was in earnest. 

“It is assuredly not gratifying to a marquis of the 
king’s making to have one of a damsel’s dubbing take 
the precedence of him. I fear you are a roundhead and 
hold by the parliament. But no — that cannot be, for 
you are willing to forsake your new cousin for your old 
dog. Nay, alas ! it is your old cousin for your young 
dog. Puritan ! puritan ! Well, it cannot be helped. 
But what ! you would ride home alone ! Evil men are 
swarming, child. This sultry weather brings them out 
like flies.” 

“ I shall not be alone, my lord. Marquis will take 
good care of me.” 

“ Indeed, my lord marquis will pledge himself to noth- 
ing outside his own walls.” 

“ I meant the dog, my lord.” 

“ Ah ! you see how awkward it is. However, as you 
will not choose between us — and to tell the truth, I am 
not yet quite prepared to die — we must needs encounter 
what is inevitable. I will send for one of the keepers to 
take him to the smithy, and get him a proper collar — 
one he can’t slip like that he left at home — and a chain.” 

“I must go with him myself, my lord. They will 
never manage him else.” 

“What a demon you have brought into my peaceable 
house! Go with him by all means. And mind you 
choose him a kennel yourself. You do not desire him 
in your chamber, do you, mistress?” 

Dorothy secretly thought it would be the best place 
for him, but she was only too glad to have his life spared. 

“No, my lord, I thank you,” she said. “ — I thank 
your lordship with all my heart.” 


128 


ST. GEORGE AND ST 0 MICHAEL. 


The marquis disappeared from the window. Presently 
young Scudamore came into the court from the staircase 
by the gate, and crossed to the hall — in a few minutes 
returning with the keeper. The man would have taken 
the dog by the neck to lead him away, but a certain 
form of canine curse, not loud but deep, and a warning 
word from Dorothy, made him withdraw his hand. 

“Take care, Mr. Keeper,” she said, “he is dangerous. 
I will go with him myself, if thou wilt show me whither.” 

“As it please you, mistress,” answered the keeper, 
and led the way across the court. 

“Have you not a word to throw at a poor cousin, 
mistress Dorothy?” said Rowland, when the man was a 
pace or two in advance. 

“No, Mr. Scudamore,” answered Dorothy; “not until 
we have first spoken in my lord Worcester’s or my lady 
Margaret’s presence.” 

Scudamore fell behind, followed her a little way, and 
somewhere vanished. 

Dorothy followed the keeper across the hall, the size 
of which, its height especially, and the splendor of its 
windows of stained glass, almost awed her; then across 
the next court to the foot of the Library tower forming 
the south-east comer of it, near the two towers flanking 
the main entrance. Here a stair led down, through the 
wall, to a lower level outside, where were the carpenters’ 
and all other workshops, the forges, the stables, and the 
farmyard buildings. 

As it happened, when Dorothy entered the smithy, 
there was her own little horse being shod, and Marquis 
and he interchanged a whine and a whinny of salutation, 
while the men stared at the bright apparition of a young 
lady in their dingy regions. Having heard her business, 
the head-smith abandoned everything else to alter an 
iron collar, of which there were several lying about, to fit 


THE TWO MARQUISES. 


129 


the mastiff, the presence of whose mistress proved en- 
tirely necessary. Dorothy had indeed to put it on him 
with her own hands, for at the sound of the chain 
attached to it he began to grow furious, growling fiercely. 
When the chain had been made fast with a staple driven 
into a strong kennel-post, and his mistress proceeded to 
take her leave of him, his growling changed to the most 
piteous whining ; but when she actually left him there, 
he flew into a rage of indignant affection. After trying 
the strength of his chain, however, by three or four 
bounds each so furious as to lay him sprawling on his 
back, he yielded to the inevitable, and sullenly crept 
into his kennel, while Dorothy walked back to the room 
which had already begun to seem to her a cell 


CHAPTER XIII. 


THE MAGICIAN’S VAULT. 

D OROTHY went straight to lady pWkir, 

and made her humble apology for the trouble and 
alarm her dog had occasioned. Lady Margaret assured 
her that the children were nothing the worse, not having 
been even much terrified, for the dog had not gone a 
hair’s-breadth beyond rough play. Poor bunny was the 
only one concerned who had not yet recovered his 
equanimity. He did not seem positively hurt, she said, 
but as he would not eat the lovely clover under his nose 
where he lay in Molly’s crib, it was clear that the circu- 
lation of his animal spirits had been too rudely checked. 
Thereupon Dorothy begged to be taken to the nursery, 
for, being familiar with all sorts cr tame animals, she 
knew rabbits well. As she stood with the little creature 
in her arms, gently stroking its soft whiteness, the chil- 
dren gathered round her, and she bent herself to initiate 
a friendship with them, while doing her best to comfort 
and restore their favorite. Success in the latter object 
she found the readiest way to the former. Under the 
sweet galvanism of her stroking hand the rabbit was 
presently so much better that when she offered him a 
blade of the neglected clove**, the equilateral triangle of 
his queer mouth was immediately set in motion, the 
trefoil vanished, and when he was once more placed in 
the crib he went on with his meal as if nothing had 
happened. The children were in ecstasies, and cousin 
Dorothy was from that moment popular and on the way 
to be something better. 


THE MAGICIAN'S VAULT. 


131 


When supper time came, lady Margaret took her again 
to the dining-room, where there was much laughter over 
the story of the two marquises, lord Worcester driving 
the joke in twenty different directions, but so kindly 
that Dorothy, instead of being disconcerted or even 
discomposed thereby, found herself emboldened to take 
a share in the merriment. When the company rose 
lady Margaret once more led her to her own room, 
where, working at her embroidery frame, she chatted 
with her pleasantly for some time. Dorothy would have 
been glad if she had set her to work also, for she could 
ill brook doing nothing. Notwithstanding her quietness 
of demeanor, amounting at times to an appearance of 
immobility, her nature was really an active one, and it 
was hard for her to sit with her hands in her lap. Lady 
Margaret at length perceived her discomfort. 

“I fear, my child, I am wearying you,” she said. 

“It is only that I want something to do, madam,” 
said Dorothy. 

“ I have nothing at hand for you to-night,” returned 
lady Margaret. “ Suppose we go and find my lord ; — I 
mean my own lord Herbert. I have not seen him since 
we broke fast together, and you have not seen him at all. 
I am afraid he must think of leaving home again soon, 
he seems so anxious to get something or other finished.” 

As she spoke she pushed aside her frame, and telling 
Dorothy to go and fetch herself a cloak, went into the 
next room, whence she presently returned, wrapped in a 
hooded mantle. As soon as Dorothy came, she led her 
along the corridor to a small lobby whence a stair de- 
scended to the court, issuing close by the gate. 

“ I shall never learn my way about,” said Dorothy. 
“ If it were only the staircases, they are more than my 
memory will hold.” 

Lady Margaret gave a merry little laugh. 


132 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


“Harry set himself to count them the other day,” she 
said. “I do not remember how many he made out 
altogether, but I know he said there were at least thirty 
stone ones.” 

Dorothy’s answer was an exclamation. 

But she was not in the mood to dwell upon the mere 
arithmetic of vastness. Invaded by the vision of the 
mighty structure, its aspect rendered yet more imposing 
by the time which now suited with it, she forgot lady 
Margaret’s presence, and stood still to gaze. 

The twilight had deepened half way into night. There 
was no moon, and in the dusk the huge masses of build- 
ing rose full of mystery and awe. Above the rest, the 
great towers on all sides seemed by indwelling might to 
soar into the regions of air. The pile stood there, the 
epitome of the story of an ancient race, the precipitate 
from its vanished life — a hard core that had gathered in 
the vaporous mass of history — the all of solid that re- 
mained to witness of the past. 

She came again to herself with a start. Lady Marga- 
ret had stood quietly waiting for her mood to change. 
Dorothy apologized, but her mistress only smiled and 
said, 

“ I am in no haste, child. I like to see another 
impressed as I was when first I stood just where you 
stand now. Come, then, I will show you something 
different.” 

She led the way along the southern side of the court 
until they came to the end of the chapel, opposite which 
an archway pierced the line of building, and revealed 
the mighty bulk of the citadel, the only portion of the 
castle, except the kitchen-tower, continuing impregnable 
to enlarged means of assault: gunpowder itself, as yet 
far from perfect in composition and make, and condi- 
tioned by clumsy, uncertain, and ill-adjustable artillery, 


THE MAGICIAN'S VAULT 133 

was nearly powerless against walls more than ten feet in 
thickness. 

I have already mentioned that one peculiarity of 
Raglan was a distinct moat surrounding its keep. Im- 
mediately from the outer end of the archway, a gothic 
bridge of stone led across this thirty-foot moat to a 
narrow walk which encompassed the tower. The walk 
was itself encompassed and divided from the moat by a 
wall with six turrets at equal distances, surmounted by 
battlements. At one time the sole entrance to the tower 
had been by a drawbridge dropping across the walk to 
the end of the stone bridge, from an arched door in the 
wall, whose threshold was some ten or twelve feet from 
the ground ; but another entrance had since been made 
on the level of the walk, and by it the two ladies now 
entered. Passing the foot of a great stone staircase, 
they came to the door of what had, before the opening 
of the lower entrance, been a vaulted cellar, probably at 
one time a dungeon, at a later period a place of storage, 
but now put to a very different use, and wearing a 
stranger aspect than it could ever have borne at any 
past period of its story — a look indeed of mystery inex- 
plicable. When Dorothy entered she found herself in a 
large place, the form of which she could ill distinguish 
in the dull light proceeding from the chinks about the 
closed doors of a huge furnace. The air was filled with 
gurglings and strange low groanings as of some creature 
in dire pain. Dorothy had as good nerves as ever 
woman, yet she could not help some fright as she stood 
alone by the door and stared into the gloomy twilight 
into which her companion had advanced. As her eyes 
became used to the ruddy dusk, she could see better, 
but everywhere they lighted on shapes inexplicable, 
whose forms to the first questioning thought suggested 
instruments of torture; but, cruel as some of them 


134 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


looked, they were almost too strange, contorted, fantasti- 
cal for such. Still, the wood-cuts in a certain book she 
had been familiar with in childhood, commonly called 
Fox's Book of Martyrs , kept haunting her mind’s eye — 
and were they not papists into whose hands she had 
fallen ? she said to herself, amused at the vagaries of her 
own involuntary suggestions. Among the rest one thing 
specially caught her attention, both from its size and its 
complicated strangeness. It was a huge wheel standing 
near the wall, supported between two strong uprights — 
some twelve or fifteen feet in diameter, with about fifty 
spokes, from every one of which hung a large weight. 
Its grotesque and threatful character was greatly in- 
creased by the mingling of its one substance with its 
many shadows on the wall behind it. So intent was she 
upon it that she started when lady Margaret spoke. 

“Why, mistress Dorothy!” she said, “you look as if 
you had wandered into St. Anthony’s cave! Here is 
my lord Herbert to welcome his cousin.” 

Beside her stood a man rather under the middle stat- 
ure, but as his back was to the furnace this was about 
all Dorothy could discover of his appearance, save that 
he was in the garb of a workman, with bare head and 
arms, and held in his hand a long iron rod, ending in a 
hook. 

“Welcome, indeed, cousin Vaughan !” he said heartily, 
but without offering his hand, which in truth, although 
an honest, skillful, and well-fashioned hand, was at the 
present moment far from fit for a lady’s touch. 

There was something in his voice not altogether 
strange to Dorothy, but she could not tell of whom or 
what it reminded her. 

“ Are you come to take another lesson on the cross- 
bow?” he asked with a smile. 

Then she knew he was the same she had met in the 


THE MAGICIAN'S VAULT. 


135 


looped chamber beside the arblast. An occasional slight 
halt, not impediment, in his speech, was what had re- 
mained on her memory. Did he always dwell only in 
the dusky borders of the light ? 

Dorothy uttered a little “Oh!” of surprise, but imme- 
diately recovering herself, said, 

“ I am sorry I did not know it was you, my lord. I 
might by this time have been capable of discharging 
bolt or arrow with good aim in defense of the castle.” 

“ It is not yet too late, I hope,” returned the workman- 
lord. “ I confess I was disappointed to find your curi- 
osity went no further. I hoped I had at last found a 
lady capable of some interest in pursuits like mine. 
For my lady Margaret here, she cares not a straw for 
anything I do, and would rather have me keep my hands 
clean than discover the mechanism of the primum mo- 
bile.” 

“Yes, in truth, Ned,” said his wife, “I would rather 
have thee with fair hands in my sweet parlor, than toil- 
ing and moiling in this dirty dungeon, with no compan- 
ion but that horrible fire-engine of thine, grunting and 
roaring all night long.” 

“Why, what do you make of Caspar Kaltoff, my 
lady?” 

“I make not much of him.” 

“You misjudge his goodfellowship then.” 

“ Truly, I think not well of him : he always hath 
secrets with thee, and I like it not.” 

“That they are secrets is thine own fault, Peggy. 
How can I teach thee my secrets if thou wilt not open 
thine ears to hear them ?” 

“I would your lordship would teach me!” said Doro- 
thy. “ I might not be an apt pupil, but I should be both 
an eager and a humble one.” 

“ By St. Patrick ! mistress Dorothy, but you go straight 


136 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL, 


to steal my husband’s heart from me. ‘Humble,’ for* 
sooth ! and ‘ eager’ too ! Nay ! nay ! If I have no part 
in his brain, I can the less yield his heart.” 

“What would be gladly learned would be gladly 
taught, cousin,” said lord Herbert. 

“There! there!” exclaimed lady Margaret; “I knew 
it would be so. You discharge your poor dull apprentice 
the moment you find a clever one !” 

“And why not ? I never was able to teach thee any- 
thing.” 

“Ah, Ned, there you are unkind indeed!” said lady 
Margaret, with something in her voice that suggested the 
water-springs were swelling. 

“My shamrock of four!” said her husband in the 
tenderest tone, “ I but jested with thee. How shouldst 
thou be my pupil in anything I can teach ? I am yours 
in all that is noble and good. I did not mean to vex 
you, sweet heart.” 

“Tis gone again, Ned,” she answered smiling. “Give 
cousin Dorothy her first lesson.” 

“ It shall be that, then, to which I sought in vain to 
make thee listen this very morning— a certain great say- 
ing of my lord of Verulam, mistress Dorothy. I had 
learnt it by heart that I might repeat it word for word to 
my lady, but she would none of it.” 

“ May I not hear it, madam?” said Dorothy. 

“We will both hear it, Herbert, if you will pardon 
your foolish wife and admit her to grace.” And as she 
spoke she laid her hand on his sooty arm. 

He answered her only with a smile, but such a one as 
sufficed. 

“Listen then, ladies both,” he said. “My lord of 
Verulam, having quoted the words of Solomon, ‘ The 
glory of God is to conceal a thing, but the glory of the 
king is to find it out,’ adds thus, of his own thought 


THE MAGICIAN'S VAULT. 


137 


concerning them, — ‘ as if,’ says my lord, ‘according to the 
innocent play of children, the divine majesty took delight 
to hide his works, to the end to have them found out, 
and as if kings could not obtain a greater honor than to 
be God’s playfellows in that game, considering the great 
commandment of wits and means, whereby nothing 
needeth to be hidden from them.’” 

“ That was very well for my lord of — What didst thou 
call him, Ned ?” 

“Francis Bacon, lord Verulam,” returned Herbert 
with a queer smile. 

“Very well for my lord of Veryflam!” resumed lady 
Margaret, with a mock, yet bewitching affectation of 
innocence and ignorance ; “ but tell me had he — ? nay, I 
am sure he had not a wild Irishwoman sitting breaking 
her heart in her bower all day long for his company. 
He could never else have had the heart to say it. — Mis- 
tress Dorothy,” she went on, “take the counsel of a 
forsaken wife, and lay it to thy heart : never marry a 
man who loves lathes and pipes and wheels and water 
and fire and I know not what. — But do come in ere bed- 
time, Herbert, and I will sing thee the sweetest of 
English ditties, and make thee such a sack-posset as 
never could be made out of old Ireland any more than 
the song.” 

But her husband that moment sprang from her side, 
and shouting “Caspar! Caspar!” bounded to the fur- 
nace, reached up with his iron rod into the darkness over 
his head, caught something with the hooked end of it, 
and pulled hard. A man who from somewhere in the 
gloomy place had responded like a greyhound to his 
master’s call did the like on the other side. Instantly 
followed a fierce, protracted, sustained hiss, and in a 
moment the place was filled with a white cloud, whence 
issued still the hideous hiss, changing at length to a roar. 


138 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


Lady Margaret turned in terror, ran out of the keep, and 
fled across the bridge and through the archway before 
she slackened her pace. Dorothy followed, but more 
composedly, led by duty, not driven by terror, and in- 
deed reluctantly forsaking a spot where was so much she 
did not understand. 

They had fled from the infant roar of the “ first stock- 
father” of steam-engines, whose cradle was that feudal 
keep, eight centuries old. 

That night Dorothy lay down weary enough. It 
seemed a month since she had been in her own bed at 
Wyfern, so many new and strange things had crowded 
into her house hitherto so still. Every now and then 
the darkness heaved and rippled with some noise of the 
night. The stamping of horses, and the ringing of their 
halter chains, seemed very near her. She thought she 
heard the howl of Marquis from afar, and said to herself, 
“ The poor fellow cannot sleep ! I must get my lord to 
let me have him in my chamber.” Then she listened a 
while to the sweet flow of the water from the mouth of 
the white horse, which in general went on all night long. 
Suddenly came an awful sound — like a howl also, but 
such as never left the throat of dog. Again and again 
at intervals it came, with others like it but not the same, 
torturing the dark with a dismal fear. Dorothy had 
never heard the cry of a wild beast, but the suggestion 
that these might be such cries, and the recollection that 
she had heard such beasts were in Raglan Castle, came 
together to her mind. She was so weary, however, that 
worse noises than these could hardly have kept her 
awake ; not even her weariness could prevent them from 
following her into her dreams. 


CHAPTER XIV. 


SEVERAL PEOPLE, 


ORD WORCESTER had taken such a liking to 



1 j Dorothy, partly at first because of the good store 

of merriment with which she and her mastiff had pro- 
vided him, that he was disappointed when he found her 
place was not to be at his table but the housekeeper’s. 
As he said himself, however, he did not meddle with 
women’s matters, and indeed it would not do for lady 
Margaret to show her so much favor above her other 
women, of whom at least one was her superior in rank, 
and all were relatives as well as herself. 

Dorothy did not much relish their society, but she 
had not much of it except at meals, when, however, they 
always treated her as an interloper. Every day she saw 
more or less of lady Margaret, and found in her such 
sweetness, if not quite evenness, of temper, as well as 
gayety of disposition, that she learned to admire as well 
as love her. Sometimes she had her to read to her, some- 
times to work with her, and almost every day she made 
her practice a little on the harpsichord. Hence she not 
only improved rapidly in performance, but grew capable 
of receiving more and more delight from music. There 
was a fine little organ in the chapel, on which blind 
young Delaware, the son of the marquis’s master of the 
horse, used to play delightfully, and although she never 
entered the place, she would stand outside listening to 
his music for an hour at a time in the twilight or some- 
times even after dark. For as yet she indulged without 
question all the habits of her hitherto free life, as far as 


140 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


was possible within the castle walls, and the outermost 
of these were of great circuit, inclosing lawns, shrub- 
beries, wildernesses, flower and kitchen gardens, orch- 
ards, great fish-ponds, little lakes with fountains, islands, 
and summer-houses — not to mention the farmyard, and 
indeed a little park, in which were some of the finest 
trees upon the estate. 

The gentlewomen with whom Dorothy was, by her 
position in the household, associated, were three in 
number. One was a rather elderly, rather plain, rather 
pious lady, who did not insist on her pretensions to 
either of the epithets. The second was a short, plump, 
round-faced, good-natured, smiling woman of sixty, ex- 
celling in fasts and mortifications, which somehow seemed 
to agree with her body as well as her soul. The third 
was only two or three years older than Dorothy, and was 
pretty, except when she began to speak, and then for a 
moment there was a strange discord in her features. 
She took a dislike to Dorothy, as she said herself, the 
instant she cast her eyes upon her. She could not bear 
that prim, set face, she said. The country-bred heifer 
evidently thought herself superior to every one in the 
castle. She was persuaded the minx was a sly one, and 
would carry tales. So judged mistress Amanda Serafina 
Fuller, after her kind. Nor was it wonderful that, being 
such as she was, she should recoil with antipathy from 
one whose nature had a tendency to ripen over soon, 
and stunt its slow orbicular expansion to the premature 
and false completeness of a narrow and self-sufficing 
conscientiousness. 

Doubtless if Dorothy had shown any marked acknowl- 
edgment of the precedency of their rights — any eagerness 
to conciliate the aborigines of the circle, the ladies would 
have been more friendlily inclined ; but while capable of 
endless love and veneration, there was little of the 


SEVERAL PEOPLE. 


141 


conciliatory in her nature. Hence Mrs. Doughty looked 
upon her with a rather stately indifference, my lady 
Broughton with a mild wish to save her poor, proud, 
protestant soul, and mistress Amanda Serafina said she 
hated her; but then ever since the fall there has been a 
disproportion betwixt the feelings of young ladies and the 
language in which they represent them. Mrs. Doughty 
neglected her, and Dorothy did not know it ; lady 
Broughton said solemn things to her, and she never saw 
the point of them ; but when mistress Amanda half 
closed her eyes and looked at her in snake-Geraldine 
fashion, she met her with a full, wide-orbed, questioning 
gaze, before which Amanda’s eyes dropped, and she 
sank full fathom five towards the abyss of real hatred. 

During the dinner hour, the three generally talked 
together in an impregnable manner — not that they were 
by any means bosom-friends, for two of them had never 
before united in anything except despising good, soft 
lady Broughton. When they were all together in their 
mistress’s presence, they behaved to Dorothy and to 
each other with studious politeness. 

The ladies Elizabeth and Anne had their gentlewomen 
also, in all only three however, who also ate at the 
housekeeper’s table, but kept somewhat apart from the 
rest — yet were, in a distant way, friendly to Dorothy. 

But hers, as we have seen, was a nature far more 
capable of attaching itself to a few than of pleasing 
many ; and her heart went out to lady Margaret, whom 
she would have come ere long to regard as a mother, 
had she not behaved to her more like an elder sister. 
Lady Margaret’s own genuine behavior had indeed little 
of the matronly in it; when her husband came into the 
room, she seemed to grow instantly younger, and her 
manner changed almost to that of a playful girl. It is 
true, Dorothy had been struck with the dignity of her 


142 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


manner amid all the frankness of her reception, but she 
soon found that, although her nature was full of all real 
dignities, that which belonged to her carriage never 
appeared in the society of those she loved, and was 
assumed only, like the thin shelter of a veil, in the 
presence of those whom she either knew or trusted less. 
Before her ladies, she never appeared without some 
restraint — manifest in a certain measuredness of move- 
ment, slowness of speech, and choice of phrase; but 
before a month was over, Dorothy was delighted to find 
that the reserve instantly vanished when she happened 
to be left alone with her. 

She took an early opportunity of informing her mis- 
tress of the relationship between herself and Scudamore, 
stating that she knew little or nothing of him, having 
seen him only once before she came to the castle. The 
youth on his part took the first fitting opportunity of 
addressing her in lady Margaret’s presence, and soon 
they were known to be cousins all over the castle. 

With lady Margaret’s help, Dorothy came to a tolera- 
ble understanding of Scudamore. Indeed her ladyship’s 
judgment seemed but a development of her own feeling 
concerning him. 

“Rowland is not a bad fellow,” she said, “but I 
cannot fully understand whence he comes in such grace 
with my lord Worcester. If it were my husband now, I 
should not marvel : he is so much occupied with things 
and engines, that he has as little time as natural inclina- 
tion to doubt any one who will only speak largely enough 
to satisfy his idea. But my lord of Worcester knows 
well enough that seldom are two things more unlike than 
men and their words. Yet that is not what I mean to 
say of your cousin : he is no hypocrite — means not to be 
false, but has no rule of right in him so far as I can find. 
He is pleasant company ; his gayety, his quips, his read- 


SEVERAL PEOPLE. 


143 


iness of retort, his courtesy and what not, make him a 
favorite; and my lord hath in a manner reared him, 
which goes to explain much. He is quick yet indolent, 
good-natured but selfish, generous but counting enjoy- 
ment the first thing, — though, to speak truth of him, I 
have never known him to do a dishonorable action. 
But, in a word, the star of duty has not yet appeared 
above his horizon. Pardon me, Dorothy, if I am severe 
upon him. More or less I may misjudge him, but this is 
how I read him; and if you wonder that I should be 
able so to divide him, I have but to tell you that I should 
be unapt indeed if I had not yet learned of my husband 
to look into the heart of both men and things.” 

“ But, madam,” Dorothy ventured to say, “ have you 
not even now told me that from very goodness my lord 
is easily betrayed?” 

u Well replied, my child ! It is true, but only while 
he has had no reason to mistrust. Let him once perceive 
ground for dissatisfaction or suspicion, and his eye is 
keen as light itself to penetrate and unravel.” 

Such good qualities as lady Margaret accorded her 
cousin were of a sort more fitted to please a less sedate 
and sober-minded damsel than Dorothy, who was fash- 
ioned rather after the model of a puritan than a royalist 
maiden. Pleased with his address and his behavior to 
herself as she could hardly fail to be, she yet felt a 
lingering mistrust of him, which sprang quite as much 
from the immediate impression of his presence as from 
her mistress’s judgment of him, for it always gave her a 
sense of not coming near the real man in him. There is 
one thing a hypocrite even can never do, and that is, 
hide the natural signs of his hypocrisy, and Rowland, 
who was no hypocrite, only a man not half so honorable 
as he chose to take himself for, could not conceal his 
unreality from the eyes of his simple country cousin. 


144 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


Little, however, did Dorothy herself suspect whence she 
had the idea against which his lack stuck shadowy off — 
that it was her girlhood’s converse with real, sturdy, 
honest, straightforward, simple manhood, in the person 
of the youth of fiery temper, and obstinate, opinionated, 
sometimes even rude behavior, whom she had chastised 
with terms of contemptuous rebuke, which had rendered 
her so soon capable of distinguishing between a profound 
and a shallow, a genuine and an unreal nature, even 
when the latter comprehended a certain power of fasci- 
nation active enough to be recognizable by most of the 
women in the castle. 

Concerning this matter, it will suffice to say that lord 
Worcester — who ruled his household with such authori- 
tative wisdom that honest Dr. Bayly avers he never saw 
a better ordered family — never saw a man drunk or 
heard an oath amongst his servants, all the time he was 
chaplain in the castle — would have been scandalized to 
know the freedoms his favorite indulged himself in, and 
regarded as privileged familiarities. 

There was much coming and going of visitors — more 
now upon state business than matters of friendship or 
ceremony; and occasional solemn conferences were held 
in the marquis’s private room, at which sometimes lord 
John, who was a personal friend of the king’s, and 
sometimes lord Charles, the governor of the castle, with 
perhaps this or that officer of dignity in the household, 
would be present ; but whoever was or was not present, 
lord Herbert when at home was always there, sometimes 
alone with his father and commissioners from the king. 
His absences, however, had grown frequent now that his 
majesty had appointed him general of South Wales, and 
he had considerable forces under his command — mostly 
raised by himself, and maintained at his own and his 
father’s expense. 


SEVERAL PEOPLE. 


145 


It was some time after Dorothy had twice in one day 
met him darkling, before she saw him in the light, and 
was able to peruse his countenance, which she did care- 
fully, with the mingled instinct and insight of curious 
and thoughtful girlhood. He had come home from a 
journey, changed his clothes, and had some food; and 
now he appeared in his wife’s parlor — to sun himself a 
little, he said. When he entered, Dorothy, who was 
seated at her mistress’s embroidery frame, while she was 
herself busy mending some Flanders lace, rose to leave 
the room. But he prayed her to be seated, saying 

gayly, 

“I would have you see, cousin, that I am no beast 
of prey that loves the darkness. I can endure the 
daylight. Come, my lady, have you nothing to amuse 
your soldier with? No good news to tell him? How is 
my little Molly?” 

During the conjugal talk that followed, his cousin had 
good opportunity of making her observations. First she 
saw a fair, well-proportioned forehead, with eyes whose 
remarkable clearness looked as if it owed itself to the 
mingling of manly confidence with feminine trustfulness. 
They were dark, not very large, but rather prominent, 
and full of light. His nose was a little aquiline, and 
perfectly formed. A soft obedient mustache, brushed 
thoroughly aside, revealed right generous lips, about 
which hovered a certain sweetness ever ready to break 
into the blossom of a smile. That and a small tuft 
below was all the hair he wore upon his face. Rare 
conjunction, the whole of the countenance was remarka- 
ble both for symmetry and expression — the latter mainly 
a bright intelligence; and if, strangely enough, the 
predominant sweetness and delicacy at first suggested 
genius unsupported by practical faculty, there was a 
plentifulness and strength in the chin which helped to 
G 


146 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


correct the suggestion, and, with the brightness and 
prominence of the eyes and the radiance of the whole, to 
give a brave, almost bold look to a face which could 
hardly fail to remind those who knew them of the lovely 
verses of Matthew Raydon, describing that of Sir Philip 
Sidney : 

A sweet attractive kinde of grace, 

A full assurance given by lookes, 

Continuall comfort in a face, 

The lineaments of Gospell-bookes ; 

I trowe that countenance cannot lie 
Whose thoughts are legible in the eie. 

Notwithstanding the disadvantages of the fashion, in the 
mechanical pursuits to which he had hitherto devoted 
his life, he wore, like Milton’s Adam, his wavy hair 
down to his shoulders. In his youth, it had been thick 
and curling; now it was thinner and straighter, yet 
curled where it lay. His hands were small, with the 
taper fingers that indicate the artist, while his thumb 
was that of the artisan, square at the tip, with the first 
joint curved a good deal back. That they were hard 
and something discolored was not for Dorothy to wonder 
at when she remembered what she had both heard and 
seen of his occupations. 

I may here mention that what aided Dorothy much in 
the interpretation of Lord Herbert’s countenance and 
the understanding of his character — for it was not on 
this first observation of him that she could discover all I 
have now set down — and tended largely to the develop- 
ment of the immense reverence she conceived for him, 
was what she saw of his behavior to his father one 
evening not long after, when, having been invited to the 
marquis’s table, she sat nearly opposite him at supper. 
With a willing ear and ready smile for every one who 
addressed him, notably courteous where all were court- 


SEVERAL PEOPLE. 


147 


eous, he gave chief observance, amounting to an almost 
tender homage, to his father. His thoughts seemed to 
wait upon him with a fearless devotion. He listened 
intently to all his jokes, and laughed at them heartily, 
evidently enjoying them even when they were not very 
good ; spoke to him with profound though easy respect ; 
made haste to hand him whatever he seemed to want, 
preventing Scudamore; and indeed conducted himself 
like a dutiful youth, rather than a man over forty. Their 
confident behavior, wherein the authority of the one and 
the submission of the other were acknowledged with co- 
relative love, was beautiful to behold. 

When husband and wife had conferred for a while, the 
former stretched on a settee embroidered by the skillful 
hands of the latest-vanished countess, his mother, and 
the latter seated near him on a narrow tall-backed chair, 
mending her lace, there came a pause in their low-toned 
conversation, and his lordship looking up seemed anew 
to become aware of the presence of Dorothy. 

“Well, cousin,” he said, “how have you fared since 
we half-saw each other a fortnight ago !” 

“ I have fared well indeed, my lord, I thank you,” said 
Dorothy, “as your lordship may judge, knowing whom I 
serve. In two short weeks my lady loads me with kind- 
ness enough to requite the loyalty of a life.” 

“ Look you, cousin, that I should believe such laud- 
ation of any less than an angel ?” said his lordship with 
mock gravity. 

“ No, my lord,” answered Dorothy. 

There was a moment’s pause ; then lord Herbert 
laughed aloud. 

“ Excellent well, mistress Dorothy !” he cried. “Thank 
your cousin, my lady, for a compliment worthy of an 
Irishwoman.” 

“ I thank you, Dorothy,” said her mistress ; “ although, 


148 ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 

Irishwoman as I am, my lord hath put me out of love 
with compliments.” 

“When they are true and come unbidden, my lady?” 
said Dorothy. 

‘‘What! are there such compliments, cousin?” said 
lord Herbert. 

“ There are birds of Paradise, my lord, though rarely 
encountered.” 

“ ‘ Birds of Paradise ’ indeed ! they alight not in this 
world. Birds of Paradise have no legs, they say.” 

“ They need them not, my lord. Once alighted they 
fly no more.” 

“ How is it then they alight so seldom?” 

“ Because men shoo them away. One flew now from 
my heart to seek my lady’s but your lordship frighted 
it.” 

“And so it flew back to Paradise — eh, mistress Doro- 
thy ?” said lord Herbert, smiling archly. 

The supper bell rang, and instead of replying, Dorothy 
looked up for her dismissal. 

“ Go to supper, my lady,” said lord Herbert. “I have 
but just dined, and will see what Caspar is about.” 

“I want no supper but my Herbert,” returned lady 
Margaret. “Thou wilt not go to that hateful work- 
shop ?” 

“ I have so little time at home now ” 

“ That you must spend it from your lady ? — Go to 
supper, Dorothy.” 


CHAPTER XV. 


HUSBAND AND WIFE. 

W HAT an old-fashioned damsel it is!” said lord 
Herbert when Dorothy had left the room. 

“ She has led a lonely life,” answered lady Margaret, 
“and has read a many old fashioned books.” 

“ She seems a right companion for thee, Peggy, and I 
am glad of it, for I shall be much from thee — more and 
more I fear, till this bitter weather be gone by.” 

“Alas, Ned ! hast thou not been more than much from 
me already? Thou wilt certainly be killed, though thou 
hast not yet a scratch on thy blessed body. I would it 
were over and all well !” 

“ So would I — and heartily, dear heart ! In very truth 
I love fighting as little as thou. But it is a thing that 
hath to be done, though small honor will ever be mine 
therefrom, I greatly fear me. It is one of those affairs 
in which liking goes farther than good will, and as I say, 
I love it not, only to do my duty. Hence doubtless it 
comes that no luck attends me. God knows I fear noth- 
ing a man ought not to fear — he is my witness — but what 
good service of arms have I yet rendered my king ? It 
is but thy face, Peggy, that draws the smile from me. 
My heart is heavy. See how my rascally Welsh yielded 
before Gloucester, when the rogue Waller stole a march 
upon them — and I must be from thence! Had I but 
been there instead of at Oxford, thinkest thou they 
would have laid down their arms nor struck a single 
blow ? I like not killing, but I can kill, and I can be 


150 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


killed. Though knowest, sweet wife, thy Ned would not 
run.” 

“Holy mother!” exclaimed lady Margaret. 

“But I have no good luck at fighting,” he went on. 
“And how again at Monmouth, the hare-hearts with 
which I had thought to garrison the place fled at the 
bare advent of that same parliament beagle. Waller ! By 
St. George ! it were easier to make an engine that should 
mow down a thousand brave men with one sweep of a 
scythe — and I could make it — than to put courage into 
the heart of one runaway rascal. It makes me mad to 
think how they have disgraced me !” 

“But Monmouth is thine own again, Herbert!” 

“Yes — thanks to the love they bear my father, not to 
my generalship ! Thy husband is a poor soldier, Peggy : 
he cannot make soldiers.” 

“ Then why not leave the field to others, and labor at 
thy engines, love ? If thou wilt, I tell thee what — I will 
doff my gown, and in wrapper and petticoat help thee, 
sweet. I will to it with bare arms like thine own.” 

“Thou wouldst like Una make a sunshine in the shady 
place, Margaret. But no. Poor soldier as I am, I will 
do my best, even where good fortune fails me, and glory 
awaits not my coming. Thou knowest that at fourteen 
days’ warning, I brought four thousand foot and eight 
hundred horse again to the siege of Gloucester. It 
would ill befit my father’s son to spare what he can 
when he is pouring out his wealth like water at the feet 
of his king. No, wife; the king shall not find me want- 
ing, for in serving my king, I serve my God ; and if I 
should fail, it may hold that an honest failure comes 
nigh enough a victory to be set down in the chronicles 
of the high countries. But in truth it presses on me 
sorely, and I am troubled at heart that I should be so 
given over to failure.” 


HUSBAND AND WIFE. 151 

“ Never heed it, my lord. The sun comes out clear 
at last maugre all the region fogs.” 

“ Thanks, sweet heart ! Things do look up a little in 
the main, and if the king had but a dozen more such 
friends as my lord marquis, they would soon be well. 
Why, my dove of comfort, wouldst thou believe it? — I 
did this day, as I rode home to seek thy fair face, I did 
count up what sums he hath already spent for his liege, 
and indeed I could not recollect them all, but I summed 
up, of pounds already spent by him on his majesty’s 
behalf, well towards a hundred and fifty thousand ! 
And thou knowest the good man, that while he giveth 
generously like the great giver, he giveth not carelessly, 
but hath respect to what he spendeth.” 

“ Thy father, Ned, is loyalty and generosity incarnate. 
If thou be but half so good a husband as thy father is a 
subject, I am a happy woman.” 

“What! know’st thou not yet thy husband, Peggy?” 

“In good soberness, though, Ned, surely the saints in 
heaven will never let such devotion fail of its end.” 

“ My father is but one, and the king’s foes are many. 
So are his friends — but they are lukewarm compared to 
my father — the rich ones of them, I mean. Would to 
God I had not lost those seven great troop-horses that 
the pudding-fisted clothiers of Gloucester did rob me 
of ! I need them sorely now. I bought them with mine 
own — or rather with thine, sweet heart. I had been 
saving up the money for a carcanet for thy fair neck.” 

“ So my neck be fair in thine eyes, my lord, it may go 
bare and be well clad. I should, in sad earnest, be 
jealous of the pretty stones didst thou give my neck one 
look the more for their presence. Here! thou may’st 
sell these the next time thou goest London-wards.” 

As she spoke, she put up her hand to unclasp her 
necklace of large pearls, but he laid his upon it, saying, 


152 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


“Nay, Margaret, there is no need. My father is like 
the father in the parable : he hath enough and to spare. 
I did mean to have the money of him again, only as the 
vaunted horses never came, but were swallowed up of 
Gloucester, as Jonah of the whale, and have not yet been 
cast up again, I could not bring my tongue to ask him 
for it ; and so thy neck is bare of emeralds, my dove’” 

“ Back and sides go bare, go bare,” 
sang lady Margaret with a merry laugh ; 

“ Both foot and hand go cold 

Here she paused for a moment, and looked down with a 
shining thoughtfulness; then sang out clear and loud, 
with bold alterations of bishop Still’s drinking song, 

“ But heart, God send thee love enough, 

Of the new that will never be old.” 

“Amen, my dove!” said lord Herbert. 

“Thou art in doleful dumps, Ned. If we had but a 
masque for thee, or a play, or even some jugglers with 
their balls! ” 

“ Puh, Peggy ! thou art masque and play both in one ; 
and for thy jugglers, I trust I can juggle better at my 
own hand than any troop of them from farthest India. 
Sing me a song, sweet heart.” 

“ I will, my love,” answered lady Margaret. 

Rising, she went to the harpsichord, and sang, in 
sweet unaffected style, one of the songs of her native 
country, a merry ditty, with a breathing of sadness in 
the refrain of it, like a twilight wind in a bed of bul- 
rushes. 

“Thanks, my love,” said lord Herbert, when she had 
finished. “But I would I could tell its hidden purport; 
for I am one of those who think music none the worse 
for carrying with it an air of such sound as speaks to the 
brain as well as the heart.” 


HUSBAND AND WIFE. 


153 


Lady Margaret gave a playful sigh. 

“ Thou hast one fault, my Edward — thou art a stranger 
to the tongue in which, through my old nurse’s tales, I 
learned the language of love. I cannot call it my 
mother-tongue, but it is my love-tongue. Why, when 
thou art from me, I am loving thee in Irish all day long, 
and thou never knowest what my heart says to thee ! It 
is a sad lack in thy all-completeness, dear heart. But, I 
bethink me, thy new cousin did sing a fair song in thy 
own tongue the other day, the which if thou canst 
understand one straw better than my Irish, I will learn 
it for thy sake, though truly it is Greek to me. I will 
send for her. Shall I ?” 

As she spoke she rose and rang the bell on the table, 
and a little page, in waiting in the antechamber, appeared, 
whom she sent to desire the attendance of mistress 
Dorothy Vaughan. 

“Come, child,” said her mistress as she entered, “I 
would have thee sing to my lord the song that wandering 
harper taught thee.” 

“Madam, I have learned of no wandering harper: 
your ladyship means mistress Amanda’s Welsh song: 
shall I call her?” said Dorothy, disappointed. 

“I mean thee, and thy song, thou green linnet!” 
rejoined lady Margaret. “ What song was it of which I 
said to thee that the singer deserved for his very song’s 
sake that whereof he made his moan? Whence thou 
hadst it, from harper or bagpiper, I care not.” 

“ Excuse me, madam, but why should I sing that you 
love not to hear?” 

“ It is not I would hear it, child, but I would have my 
lord hear it. I would fain prove to him that there are 
songs in plain English as he calls it, that have as little 
import even to an English ear as the plain truth-speaking 
Irish ditties which he will not understand. I say * will 


154 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


not’ because our bards tell us that Irish was the language 
of Adam and Eve while yet in Paradise, and therefore 
he could by instinct understand it an’ he would, even as 
the chickens understand their mother-tongue.” 

“I will sing it at your desire, madam; but I fear the 
worse fault will lie in the singing.” 

She seated herself at the harpsichord, and sang the 
following song with much feeling and simplicity. The 
refrain of the song, if it may be so called, instead of 
closing each stanza, preluded it. 

O fair, O sweet, when I do look on thee, 

In whom all joys so well agree, 

Heart and soul do sing in me. 

This you hear is not my tongue, 

Which once said what I conceived, 

For it was of use bereaved, 

With a cruel answer stung. 

No, though tongue to roof be cleaved. 

Fearing lest he chastis'd be, 

Heart and soul do sing in me. 

O fair, O sweet, &c. 

Just accord all music makes : 

In thee just accord excelleth, 

Where each part in such peace dwelleth, 

One of other beauty takes. 

Since then truth to all minds telleth 
That in thee lives harmony, 

Heart and soul do sing in me. 

O fair, O sweet, &c. 

They that heaven have known, do say 
That whoso that grace obtaineth 
To see what fair sight there reigneth, 

Forced is to sing alway ; 

So then, since that heaven remaineth 
In thy face, I plainly see, 

Heart and soul do sing in me. 


HUSBAND AND WIFE . 


155 


O fair, O sweet, &c. 

Sweet, think not I am at ease, 

For because my chief part singe th ; 

This song from death’s sorrow springeth, 

As to swan in last disease ; 

For no dumbness nor death bringeth 
Stay to true love’s melody : 

Heart and soul do sing in me. 

“There!” cried lady Margaret, with a merry laugh. 
“What says the English song to my English husband?” 

“It says much, Margaret,” returned lord Herbert, 
who had been listening intently; “it tells me to love 
you for ever. What poet is he who wrote the song, 
mistress Dorothy? He is not of our day — that I can 
tell but too plainly. It is a good song, and saith much.” 

“I found it near the end of the book called The 
Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia ,” replied Dorothy. 

“ And I knew it not ! Methought I had read all that 
man of men ever wrote,” said lord Herbert. “But I 
may have read it, and let it slip. But now that, by the 
help of the music and thy singing, cousin Dorothy, I am 
come to understand it, truly I shall forget it no more. 
Where got’st thou the music, pray?” 

“ It says in the book it was fitted to a certain Spanish 
tune, the name of which I knew not and yet know not 
how to pronounce ; but I had the look of the words in 
my head, and when I came upon some Spanish songs in 
an old chest at home, and, turning them over, saw those 
words, I knew I had found the tune to sir Philip’s 
verses.” 

“Tell me then, my lord, why you are pleased with the 
song,” said lady Margaret very quietly. 

“Come, mistress Dorothy,” said lord Herbert, “repeat 
the song to my lady, slowly, line by line, and she will 
want no exposition thereon.” 


156 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


When Dorothy had done as he requested, lady Her- 
bert put her arm round her husband’s neck, laid her 
cheek to his, and said, 

“I am a goose, Ned. It is a fair and sweet song. I 
thank you, Dorothy. You shall sing it to me another 
time when my lord is away, and I shall love to think my 
lord was ill content with me when I called it a foolish 
thing. But my Irish was a good song too, my lord.” 

“ Thy singing of it proves it, sweet heart. But come, 
my fair minstrel, thou hast earned a good guerdon: 
what shall I give thee in return for thy song?” 

“A boon, a boon, my lord!” cried Dorothy. 

“It is thine ere thou ask it,” returned his lordship, 
merrily following up the old-fashioned phrase with like 
formality. 

“I must then tell my lord what hath been in my 
foolish mind ever since my lady took me to the keep, 
and I saw his marvelous array of engines. I would 
gladly understand them, my lord. Who can fail to de- 
light in such inventions as bring about that which before 
seemed impossible?” 

Here came a little sigh with the thought of her old 
companion Richard, and the things they had together 
contrived. Already, on the mist of gathering time, a 
halo had begun to glimmer about his head, puritan, 
fanatic, blasphemer even, as she had called him. 

Lord Herbert marked the soundless sigh. 

“You shall not sigh in vain, mistress Dorothy,” he 
said, “for anything I can give you. To one who loves 
inventions it is easy to explain them. I hoped you had 
a hankering that way when I saw you look so curiously 
at the cross-bow ere you discharged it.” 

“Was it then charged, my lord?” 

“ Indeed, as it happened, it was. A great steel-headed 
arrow lay in the groove. I ought to have taken that 


HUSBAND AND WIFE. 


157 


away when I bent it. Some passing horseman may have 
carried it with him in the body of his plunging steed.” 

“Oh, my lord!” cried Dorothy, aghast. 

“ Pray, do not be alarmed, cousin : I but jested. Had 
anything happened, we should have heard of it. It was 
not in the least likely. You will not be long in this 
house before you learn that we do not speak by the card 
here. We jest not a little. But in truth I was disap- 
pointed when I found your curiosity so easily allayed.” 

“Indeed, my lord, it was not allayed, and is still 
unsatisfied. But I had no thought who it was offered 
me the knowledge I craved. Had I known, I should 
never have refused the lesson so courteously offered. 
But I was a stranger in the castle, and I thought — I 
feared — I ” 

“You did even as prudence required, cousin Dorothy. 
A young maiden cannot be too chary of unbuckling her 
enchanted armor so long as the country is unknown to 
her. But it would be hard if she were to suffer for her 
modesty. You shall be welcome to my cave. I trust 
you will not find it as the cave of Trophonius to you. 
If I am not there — and it is not now as it has been, 
when you might have found me in it every day and 
almost every hour of the day ; but if I be not there, do 
not fear Caspar Kaltoff, who is a worthy man, and as my 
right hand to do the things my brain deviseth. I will 
speak to him of thee. He is full of trust and worthiness, 
and, although not of gentle blood, is sprung from a long 
race of artificers, the cloak of whose gathered skill seems 
to have fallen on him. He hath been in my service now 
for many years, but you will be the first lady, gentle 
cousin, who has ever in all that time wished us good 
speed in our endeavors. How few know,” he went on 
thoughtfully, after a pause, “what a joy lies in making 
things obey thoughts! in calling out of the mind, as 


158 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


from the vasty deep, and setting in visible presence 
before the bodily eye, that which till then had neither 
local habitation nor name ! Some such marvels I have 
to show — for marvels I must call them, although it is my 
voice they have obeyed to come; and I never lose sight 
of the marvel even while amusing myself with the merest 
toy of my own invention.” 

He paused, and Dorothy ventured to speak. 

“ I thank you, my lord, with all my heart. When have 
I leave to visit those marvels?” 

“ When you please. If I am not there, Caspar will be, 
If Caspar is not there, you will find the door open, for to 
enter that chamber without permission would be a 
breach of law such as not a soul in Raglan would dare 
be guilty of. And were it not so, there are few indeed 
in the place who would venture to set foot in it if I were 
absent, for it is not outside the castle-walls only that I 
am looked upon as a magician. The armorer firmly 
believes that with a word uttered in my den there I could 
make the weakest wall of the castle impregnable, but that 
it would be at too great a cost. If you come to-morrow 
morning you will find me almost certainly. But in case 
you should find neither of us — do not touch anything ; 
be content with looking — for fear of mischance. Engines 
are as tickle to meddle with as incantations themselves.” 

“ If I know myself, you may trust me, my lord,” said 
Dorothy, to which he replied with a smile of confidence. 


CHAPTER XVI ; 

Dorothy’s initiation. 

HERE was much about the castle itself to interest 



JL Dorothy. She had already begun the attempt to 
gather a clear notion of its many parts and their relations, 
but the knowledge of the building could not well 
advance more rapidly than her acquaintance with its 
inmates, for little was to be done from the outside alone, 
and she could not bear to be met in strange places by 
strange people. So that part of her education — I use 
the word advisedly, for to know all about the parts of an 
old building may do more for the education of minds of 
a certain stamp than the severest course of logic — must 
wait upon time and opportunity. 

Every day, often twice, sometimes thrice, she would 
visit the stable-yard, and have an interview first with the 
chained Marquis, and then with her little horse. After 
that she would seldom miss looking in at the armorer’s 
shop, and spending a few minutes in watching him at his 
work, so that she was soon familiar with all sorts of 
armor favored in the castle. The blacksmiths’ and the 
carpenters’ shops were also an attraction to her, and it 
was not long before she knew all the artisans about the 
place. There were the farm and poultry yards too, with 
which kinds of place she was familiar — especially with 
their animals and all their ways. The very wild beasts 
in their dens in the solid basement of the kitchen tower 
— a panther, two leopards, an ounce, and a toothless old 
lion — had already begun to know her a little, for she never 
went near their cages without carrying them something 


160 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


to eat. For all these visits there was plenty of room, 
lady Margaret never requiring much of her time in the 
early part of the day, and finding the reports she brought 
of what was going on always amusing. And now the 
orchards and gardens would soon be inviting, for the 
heart of the world was already sending up its blood to 
dye the apple blossoms. 

But all the opportunities she yet had were less than 
was needful for the development of such a mind as 
Dorothy’s, which, powerful in itself, needed to be roused, 
and was slow in its movements except when excited by 
a quick succession of objects, or the contact of a kindred 
but busier nature. It was lacking not only in generative, 
but in self-moving energy. Of self-sustaining force she 
had abundance. 

There was a really fine library in the castle, to which 
she had free access, and whence, now and then, lady 
Margaret would make her bring a book from which to 
read aloud, while she and her other ladies were at work ; 
but books were not enough to rouse Dorothy, and when 
inclined to read she would return too exclusively to what 
she already knew, making little effort to extend her 
gleaning-ground. 

From this fragment of analysis it will be seen that the 
new resource thus opened to her might prove of more 
consequence than, great as were her expectations from 
it, she was yet able to anticipate. But infinitely greater 
good than any knowledge of his mechanical triumphs 
could bring her, was on its way to Dorothy along the 
path of growing acquaintance with the noble-minded 
inventor himself. 

The next morning, then, she was up before the sun, 
and sitting at her window, awaited his arrival. The 
moment he shone upon the gilded cock of the bell tower, 
she rose and hastened out, eager to taste of the sweets 


DOROTHY'S INITIATION. 


161 


promised her; stood a moment to gaze on the limpid 
stream ever flowing from the mouth of the white horse, 
and wonder whence that and the whale-spouts he so 
frequently sent aloft from his nostrils came ; then pass- 
ing through the archway and over the bridge, found 
herself at the magician’s door. For a moment she 
hesitated ; from within came such a tumult of hammer- 
ing, that plainly it was of no use to knock, and she could 
not at once bring herself to enter unannounced and 
uninvited. But confidence in lord Herbert soon aroused 
her courage, and gently she opened the door and peeped 
in. There he stood, in a linen frock that reached from 
his neck to his knees, already hard at work at a small 
anvil on a bench, while Caspar was still harder at work 
at a huge anvil on the ground in front of a forge. This, 
with the mighty bellows attached to it, occupied one of 
the six sides of the room, and the great roaring, hissing 
thing that had so frightened lady Margaret, now silent 
and cold, occupied another. Neither of the men saw 
her. So she entered, closed the door, and approached 
lord Herbert, but he continued unaware of her presence 
until she spoke. Then he ceased his hammering, turned, 
and greeted her with his usual smile of sincerity ab- 
solute. 

“Are you always as true to your appointments, cou- 
sin?” he said, and resumed his hammering. 

“ It was hardly an appointment, my lord, and yet here 
I am,” said Dorothy. 

“And you mean to infer that ?” 

“An appointment is no slight matter, my lord, or one 
that admits of breaking.” 

“Right,” returned his lordship, still hammering at the 
thin plate of whitish metal growing thinner and thinner 
under his blows. Dorothy glanced around her for a 
moment. 


162 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


“I would not be troublesome, my lord,” she said; 
a but would you tell me in a few words what it is you 
make here?” 

“ Had I three tongues, and thou three ears,” answered 
lord Herbert, “ I could not. But look round thee, 
cousin, and when thou spiest the thing that draws thine 
eye more than another, ask me concerning that, and I 
will tell thee.” 

Hardly had Dorothy, in obedience, cast her eyes about 
the place, ere they lighted on the same huge wheel which 
had before chiefly attracted her notice. 

“ What is that great wheel for, with such a number of 
weights hung to it?” she asked. 

“For a memorial,” replied lord Herbert, “of the folly 
of the man who placeth his hopes in man. That won- 
derful engine, it is now nearly three years since I showed 
it to his blessed majesty in the Tower of London, also 
with him to the dukes of Richmond and Hamilton, and 
two extraordinary ambassadors besides, but of them all 
no man hath ever sought to look upon it again. It is a 
form of the Proteus-like perpetuum mobile — a most in- 
credible thing if not seen.” 

He then proceeded to show her how as every spoke 
passed the highest point, the weight attached to it imme- 
diately hung a foot farther from the center of the wheel, 
and as every spoke passed the lowest point, its weight 
returned a foot nearer to the center, thus causing the 
leverage to be greater always on one* and the same side 
of the wheel. Few of my readers will regret so much as 
myself that I am unable to give them the constructive 
explanation his lordship gave Dorothy as to the shifting 
of the weights. Whether she understood it or not, I 
cannot tell either, but that is of less consequence. Be- 
fore she left the workshop that morning, she had learned 
that a thousand knowledges are needed to build up the 


DOROTHY'S INITIATION. 163 

pyramid on whose top alone will the bird of knowledge 
lay her new egg. 

When he had finished his explanation, lord Herbert 
returned to his work, leaving Dorothy again to her own 
observations. And now she would gladly have ques- 
tioned him about the huge mass of brick and iron, 
which, now standing silent, cold, and motionless as 
death, had that night seemed alive with the fierce energy 
of flame, and yet sorely driven, sighing, and groaning, 
and furiously hissing; but as it was not now at work, 
she thought it would be better to wait an opportunity 
when it should be in the agony of its wrestle with what- 
ever unseen enemy it coped withal. She did not know 
that, the first of its race, it was not quite equal to the 
task the magician had imposed upon it, but that its 
descendants would at length become capable of doing a 
thousand times as much with the swinging joy of con- 
scious might, with the pant of the giant, not the groan of 
the over-tasked stripling urging his last effort. 

She was standing by a chest, examining the strangely 
elaborate and mysterious-looking scutcheon of its lock, 
when his lordship’s hammering ceased, and presently 
she found that he was by her side. 

“ That escocheon is the best thing of the kind I have 
yet made,” he said. “A humor I have, never to be 
contented to produce any invention the second time, 
without appearing refined. The lock and key of this 
are in themselves a marvel, for the little triangle-screwed 
key weighs no more than a shilling, and yet it bolts and 
unbolts an hundred bolts through fifty staples round 
about the chest, and as many more from both sides and 
ends, and at the self-same time shall fasten it to a place 
beyond a man’s natural strength to take it away. But 
the best thing is the escocheon; for the owner of it, 
though a woman, may with her own delicate hand, vary 


164 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


the ways of coming to open the lock ten millions of 
times, beyond the knowledge of the smith that made it, 
or of me who invented it. If a stranger open it, it 
setteth an alarm a going, which the stranger cannot stop 
from running out ; and besides, though none should be 
within hearing, yet it catcheth his hand, as a trap doth a 
fox; and though far from maiming him, yet it leayeth 
such a mark behind it, as will discover him if suspected ; 
the escutcheon or lock plainly showing what moneys he 
hath taken out of the box to a farthing, and how many 
times opened since the owner hath been at it.” 

He then showed her how to set it, left the chest open, 
and gave her the key off his bunch that she might use it 
more easily. Ere she returned it, she had made herself 
mistress of the escutcheon as far as the mere working of 
it was concerned, as she proved to the satisfaction of the 
inventor. 

Her docility and quickness greatly pleased him. He 
opened a cabinet, and after a search in its drawers, took 
from it a little thing, in form and color like a plum, 
which he gave her, telling her to eat it. She saw from 
his smile that there was something at the back of the 
playful request, and for a moment hesitated, but reading 
in his countenance that he wished her at least to make 
the attempt, she put it in her mouth. 

She was gagged. She could neither open nor shut 
her mouth a hair’s-breadth, could neither laugh, cry out, 
nor make any noise beyond an ugly one she would not 
make twice. The tears came into her eyes, for her 
position was ludicrous, and she imagined that his lord- 
ship was making game of her. A girl less serious or 
more merry would have been moved only to laughter. 

But lord Herbert hastened to relieve her. On the 
application of a tiny key, fixed with a joint in a finger- 
ring, the little steel bolts it had thrown out in every 


DOROTHY'S INITIATION. 165 

direction returned within the plum, and he drew it from 
her mouth. 

“You little fool!” he said, with indescribable sweet- 
ness, for he saw the tears in her eyes ; “ did you think I 
would hurt you?” 

“No, my lord; but I did fear you were going to make 
game of me. I could not have borne Caspar to see me 
so.” 

“Alas, my poor child!” he rejoined, “you have come 
to the wrong house if you cannot put up with a little 
chafing. There!” he added, putting the plum in her 
hand, “ it is an untoothsome thing, but the moment may 
come when you will find it useful enough to repay you 
for the annoyance of a smile that had in it ten times 
more friendship than merriment.” 

“ I ask your pardon, my lord,” said Dorothy, by this 
time blushing deep with shame of her mistrust and 
over-sensitiveness, and on the point of crying downright. 
But his lordship smiled so kindly that she took heart 
and smiled again. 

He then showed her how to raise the key hid in the 
ring, and how to unlock the plum. 

“ Do not try it on yourself,” he said, as he put the 
ring on her finger; “you might find that awkward.” 

“Be sure I shall avoid it, my lord,” returned Dorothy. 

“And do not let any one know you have such a 
thing,” he said, “or that there is a key in your ring.” 

“I will try not, my lord.” 

The breakfast bell rang. 

“ If you will come again after supper,” he said, as he 
pulled off his linen frock, “I will show you my fire- 
engine at work, and tell you all that is needful to the 
understanding thereof ; — only you must not publish it to 
the world,” he added, “for I mean to make much gain 
by my invention^’ 


166 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


Dorothy promised, and they parted — lord Herbert for 
the marquis’s parlor, Dorothy for the housekeeper’s 
room, and Caspar for the third table in the great hall. 

After breakfast Dorothy practiced with her plum until 
she could manage it with as much readiness as ease. 
She found that it was made of steel, and that the bolts 
it threw out upon the slightest pressure were so rounded 
and polished that they could not hurt, while nothing but 
the key would reduce them again within their former 
sheath. 


CHAPTER XVII ; 


THE FIRE ENGINE. 



S soon as supper was over in the housekeeper’s 


ii room, Dorothy sped to the keep, where she found 
Caspar at work. 

“ My lord is not yet from supper, mistress,” he said. 
“Will it please you wait while he comes?” 

Had it been till midnight, so long as there was a 
chance of his appearing, Dorothy would have waited. 
Caspar did his best to amuse her, and succeeded, — 
showing her one curious thing after another, — amongst 
the rest a watch that seemed to want no winding after 
being once set a going, but was in fact wound up a little 
by every opening of the case to see the dial. All the 
while the fire-engine was at work on its mysterious task, 
with but now and then a moment’s attention from Cas- 
par, a billet of wood or a shovelful of sea-coal on the 
fire, a pull at a cord, or a hint from the hooked rod. 
The time went rapidly. 

Twilight was over, Caspar had lighted his lamp, and 
the moon had risen, before lord Herbert came. 

“I am glad to find you have patience as well as 
punctuality in the catalogue of your virtues, mistress 
Dorothy,” he said as he entered. “ I too am punctual, 
and am therefore sorry to have failed now, but it is not 
my fault : I had to attend my father. For his sake 
pardon me.” 

“ It were but a small matter, my lord, even had it 
been uncompelled, to keep an idle girl waiting.” 


168 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


“ I think not so,” returned lord Herbert. “ But come 
now, I will explain to you my wonderful fire-engine.” 

As he spoke, he took her by the hand, and led her 
towards it. The creature blazed, groaned, and puffed, 
but there was no motion to be seen about it save that of 
the flames through the cracks in the door of the furnace, 
neither was there any clanking noise of metal. A great 
rushing sound somewhere in the distance, that seemed 
to belong to it, yet appeared too far off to have any 
connection with it. 

“ It is a noisy thing,” he said, as they stood before it, 
“but when I make another, it shall do its work that thou 
wouldst not hear it outside the door. Now listen to me 
for a moment, cousin. Should it come to a siege and I 
not at Raglan — the wise man will always provide for the 
worst — Caspar will be wanted everywhere. Now this 
engine is essential to the health and comfort, if not to 
the absolute life of the castle, and there is no one at 
present capable of managing it save us two. A very 
little instruction, however, would enable any one to do 
so : will you undertake it, cousin, in case of need?” 

“ Make me assured that I can, and I will, my lord,” 
answered Dorothy. 

“A good and sufficing answer,” returned his lordship 
with a smile of satisfaction. “ First then,” he went on, 
“ I will show you wherein lies its necessity to the good 
of the castle. Come with me, cousin Dorothy.” 

He led the way from the room, and began to ascend 
the stair which rose just outside it. Dorothy followed, 
winding up through the thickness of the wall. And now 
she could not hear the engine. As she went up, how- 
ever, certain sounds of it came again, and grew louder 
till they seemed close to her ears, then gradually died 
away and once more ceased. But ever, as they as- 
cended, the rushing sound which had seemed connected 


THE FIRE ENGINE . 


169 


with it although so distant, drew nearer and nearer, 
until, having surmounted three of the five lofty stories of 
the building, they could scarcely hear each other speak 
for the roar of water, falling in intermittent jets. At 
last they came out on the top of the wall, with nothing 
between them and the moat below but the battlemented 
parapet, and behold ! the mighty tower was roofed with 
water: a little tarn filled all the space within the sur- 
rounding walk. It undulated in the moonlight like a 
subsiding storm, and beat the encircling banks. For 
into its depths shot rather than poured a great volume 
of water from a huge orifice in the wall, and the roar 
and the rush were tremendous. It was like the birth of 
a river, bounding at once from its mountain rock, and 
the sound of its fall indicated the great depth of the 
water into which it plunged. Solid indeed must be the 
walls that sustained the outpush of such a weight of 
water ! 

“You see now, cousin, what yon fire-souled slave 
below is laboring at,” said his lordship. “ His task is to 
fill this cistern, and that he can in a few hours; and 
yet, such a slave is he, a child who understands his 
fetters and the joints of his bones can guide him at will.” 

“But, my lord,” questioned Dorothy, “is there not 
water here to supply the castle for months ? And there 
is the draw-well in the pitched court besides.” 

“Enough, I grant you,” he replied, “for the mere 
necessities of life. But what would come of its pleas- 
ures? Would not the beleagured ladies miss the bounty 
of the marble horse ? Whence comes the water he gives 
so freely that he needeth not to drink himself? He 
would thirst indeed but for my water-commanding fiend 
below. Or how would the birds fare, were the fountains 
on the islands dry in the hot summer ? And what 
would the children say if he ceased to §pout? And 

H 


no 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


how would my lord’s tables fare, with armed men beset- 
ting every gate, the fish-ponds dry, and the fish rotting 
in the sun? See you, Mistress Dorothy? And for the 
draw-well, know you not wherein dies the good of a 
tower stronger than all the rest ? Is it not built for final 
retreat, the rest of the castle being at length in the 
hands of the enemy? Where then is your draw-well?” 

“ But this tower, large as it is, could not receive those 
now within the walls of the castle,” said Dorothy. 

“They will be fewer ere its shelter is needful.” 

It was his tone quite as much as the words that drove 
a sudden sickness to the heart of the girl : for one mo- 
ment she knew what siege and battle meant. But she 
recovered herself with a strong effort, and escaped from 
the thought by another question. 

“And whence comes all this water, my lord,” she 
said, for she was one who would ask until she knew all 
that concerned her. 

“ Have you not chanced to observe a well in my 
workshop below, on the left-hand side of the door, not 
far from the great chest?” 

“I have observed it, my lord.” 

“ That is a very deep well, with a powerful spring. 
Large pipes lead from all but the very bottom of that to 
my fire-engine. The fuller the well, the more rapid the 
flow into the cistern, for the shallower the water, the 
more labor falls to my giant. He is finding it harder 
work now. But you see the cistern is nearly full.” 

“Forgive me, my lord, if I am troubling you,” said 
Dorothy, about to ask another question. 

“I delight in the questions of the docile,” said his 
lordship. “ They are the little children of wisdom. — 
There! that might be out of the book of Ecclesiasticus,” 
he added, with a merry laugh. “ I might pass that off 
on Dr. Bayly for my father’s : he hath already begun to 


THE FIRE ENGINE. 


171 


gather my father’s sayings into a book, as I have dis- 
covered. But, prithee, cousin, let not my father know 
of it.” 

“ Fear not me, my lord,” returned Dorothy. “ Having 
no secrets of my own to house, it were evil indeed to 
turn my friends’ out of doors.” 

“ Why, that also would do for Dr. Bayly ! Well said, 
Dorothy! Now for thy next question.” 

“ It is this, my lord : having such a well in your foun- 
dations, whence the need of such a cistern on your roof? 
I mean now as regards the provision of the keep itself in 
case of ultimate resort.” 

“ In coming to deal with a place of such strength as 
this,” replied his lordship, “ — I mean the keep whereon 
we now stand, not the castle, which, alas! hath many 
weak points — the enemy would assuredly change the 
siege into a blockade; that is, he would try to starve 
instead of fire us out ; and, procuring information suffi- 
ciently to the point, would be like enough to dig deep 
and cut the water-veins which supply that well; and 
thereafter all would depend on the cistern. From the 
moment therefore when the first signs of siege appear, it 
will be wisdom and duty on the part of the person in 
charge, to keep it constantly full — full as a cup to the 
health of the king. I trust however that such will be 
the good success of his majesty’s arms that the worst 
will only have to be provided against, not encountered. — 
But there is more in it yet. Come hither, cousin. Look 
down through this battlement upon the moat. You see 
the moon in it ? No ? That is because it is covered so 
thick with weeds. When you go down, mark how low it 
is. There is little defense in the moat that a boy might 
wade through. I have allowed it to get shallow in order 
to try upon its sides a new cement I have lately discov- 
ered; but weeks and weeks have passed, and I have 


172 ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 

never found the leisure, and now I am sure I never shall 
until this rebellion is crushed. It is time I filled it. 
Pray look down upon it, cousin. In summer it will be 
full of the loveliest white water-lilies, though now you 
can see nothing but green weeds.” 

He had left her side and gone a few paces away, but 
kept on speaking. 

“ One strange thing I can tell you about them, cousin 
— the roots of that whitest of flowers make a fine black 
dye ! What apophthegm founded upon that thinkest 
thou my father would drop for Dr. Bayly?” 

“ You perplex me much, my lord,” said Dorothy. “I 
cannot at all perceive your lordship’s drift.” 

“ Lay a hand on each side of the battlement where 
you now stand ; lean through it and look down. Hold 
fast and fear nothing.” 

Dorothy did as she was desired, and thus supported 
gazed upon the moat below, where it lay a mere ditch at 
the foot of the lofty wall. 

“ My lord, I see nothing,” she said, turning to him, as 
she thought ; but he had vanished. 

Again she looked at the moat and then her eyes wan- 
dered away over the castle. The two courts and their 
many roofs, even those of all the towers, except only the 
lofty watch-tower on the western side, lay bare beneath 
her, in bright moon-light, flecked and blotted with sha- 
dows, all wondrous in shape and black as Erebus. 

Suddenly, she knew not whence, arose a frightful roar- 
ing, a hollow bellowing, a pent-up rumbling. Seized by 
a vague terror, she clung to the parapet and trembled. 
But even the great wall beneath her, solid as the earth 
itself, seemed to tremble under her feet, as with some 
inward commotion or dismay. The next moment the 
water in the moat appeared to rush swiftly upwards, in 
wild uproar, fiercely confused, and covered with foam 


THE FIRE ENGINE. 


173 


and spray. To her bewildered eyes, it seemed to heap 
itself up, wave upon furious wave, to reach the spot 
where she stood greedy to engulf her. For an instant 
she fancied the storming billows pouring over the edge 
of the battlement, and started back in such momentary 
agony as we suffer in dreams. Then, by a sudden recti- 
fication of her vision, she perceived that what she saw 
was in reality a multitude of fountain jets rushing high 
towards their parent-cistern, but far-failing ere they 
reached it. The roar of their onset was mingled with 
the despairing tumult of their defeat, and both with the 
deep tumble and wallowing splash of the water from the 
fire-engine which grew louder and louder as the surface 
of the water in the reservoir sank. The uproar ceased 
as suddenly as it commenced, but the moat mirrored a 
thousand moons in the agitated waters which had over- 
whelmed its mantle of weeds. 

“You see now,” said lord Herbert, rejoining her while 
still she gazed, “ how necessary the cistern is to the keep ? 
Without it, the few poor springs in the moat would but 
sustain it as you saw it. From here I can fill it to the 
brim.” 

“ I see,” answered Dorothy. “ But would not a simple 
overflow serve, carried from the well through the wall?” 

“ It would, were there no other advantages with which 
this mode harmonized. — I must mention one thing more 
— which I was almost forgetting, and which I cannot 
well show you to-night — namely, that I can use this 
water not only as a means of defense in the moat, but as 
an engine of offense also against any one setting unlaw- 
ful or hostile foot upon the stone-bridge over it. I can, 
when I please, turn that bridge, the same by which you 
cross to come here, into a rushing aqueduct, and with a 
torrent of water sweep from it a whole company of 
invaders.” 


174 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


“ But would they not have only to wait until the cis- 
tern was empty ?” 

“ As soon and so long as the bridge is clear, the out- 
flow ceases. One sweep, and my water-broom would 
stop, and the rubbish lie sprawling under the arch, or 
half-way over the court. And more still,” he added 
with emphasis : “ I could make it boiling!” 

“But your lordship would not ?” faltered Dorothy. 

“That might depend,” he answered with a smile. 
Then changing his tone to an absolute and impressive 
seriousness, “ But this is all nothing but child’s play,” 
he said, “compared with what is involved in the matter 
of this reservoir. The real origin of it was its needful- 
ness to the perfecting of my fire-engine.” 

“ Pardon me, my lord, but it seems to me that without 
the cistern there would be no need for the engine. How 
should you want or how could you use the unhandsome 
thing? Then how should the cistern be necessary to 
the engine?” 

“Handsome is that handsome does,” returned his 
lordship. “ Truly, cousin Dorothy, you speak well, but 
you must learn to hear better. I did not say that the 
cistern existed for the sake of the engine, but for the 
sake of the perfecting of the engine. Cousin Dorothy, I 
will give you the largest possible proof of my confidence 
in you, by not only explaining to you the working of my 
fire-engine, but acquainting you — only you must not 
betray me?” 

“ I, in my turn,” said Dorothy, “ will give your lord- 
ship, if not the strongest, yet a very strong proof of my 
confidence : I promise to keep your secret before know- 
ing what it is.” 

“ Thanks, cousin. Listen then : That engine is a 
mingling of discovery and invention such as hath never 
had its equal since first the mechanical powers were 


THE FIRE ENGINE. 


175 


brought to the light. For this shall be as a soul to animate 
those, all and each — lever, screw, pulley, wheel, and axle 
— what you will. No engine of mightiest force ever for 
defense or assault invented, let it be by Archimedes 
himself, but could, by my fire-engine, be rendered tenfold 
more mighty for safety or for destruction, although as 
yet I have applied it only to the blissful operation of 
lifting water, thus removing the curse of it where it is a 
curse, and carrying it where the parched soil cries for its 
help to unfold the treasures of its thirsty bosom. My 
fire-engine shall yet uplift the nation of England above 
the heads of all richest and most powerful nations on 
the face of the whole earth. For when the troubles of 
this rebellion are over, which press so heavily on his 
majesty and all loyal subjects, compelling even a peace- 
ful man like myself to forsake invention for war, and the 
workman’s frock which I love, for the armor which I 
love not, when peace shall smile again on the country, 
and I shall have time to perfect the work of my hands, I 
shall present it to my royal master, a magical supremacy 
of power, which shall for ever raise him and his royal 
progeny above all use or need of subsidies, ship-money, 
benevolences, or taxes of whatever sort or name, to rule 
his kingdom as independent of his subjects in reality as 
he is in right ; for this water-commanding engine which 
God hath given me to make, shall be the source of such 
wealth as no accountant can calculate. For herewith 
may marsh-land be thoroughly drained, or dry land 
perfectly watered; great cities kept sweet and whole- 
some; mines rid of the water gathering from springs 
therein, so as he may enrich himself withal ; houses be 
served plentifully on every stage; the gardens in the 
dryest summer beautified and comforted with fountains. 
Which engine when I found that it was in the power of 
my hands to do, as well as of my heart to conceive that 


176 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


it might be done, I did kneel down and give humble 
thanks from the bottom of my heart to the omnipotent 
God whose mercies are fathomless, for his vouchsafing 
me an insight into so great a secret of nature and so 
beneficial to all mankind as this my engine.” 

With all her devotion to the king, and all her hatred 
and contempt of the parliament and the puritans, Doro- 
thy could not help a doubt whether such independence 
might be altogether good either for the king himself or 
the people thus subjected to his will. But the farther 
doubt did not occur to her whether a pre-eminence 
gained chiefly by wealth was one to be on any grounds 
desired for the nation, or, setting that aside, was one 
which carried a single element favorable to perpetuity. 

All this time they had been standing on the top of the 
keep with the moonlight around them, and in their ears 
the noise of the water flowing from the dungeon well 
into the sky-roofed cistern. But now it came in dimin- 
ished flow. 

“ It is the earth that fails in giving, not my engine in 
taking,” said lord Herbert as he turned to lead the way 
down the winding stair. Ever as they went the noise of 
the water grew fainter and the noise of the engine grew 
louder, but just as they stepped from the stair, it gave a 
failing stroke or two, and ceased. A dense white cloud 
met them as they entered the vault. 

“Stopped for the night, Caspar?” said his lordship. 

“Yes, my lord; the well is nearly out.” 

“ Let it sleep,” returned his master ; “ like a man's 
heart it will fill in the night. Thank God for the night 
and darkness and sleep, in which good things draw nigh 
like God’s thieves, and steal themselves in — water into 
wells, and peace and hope and courage into the minds 
of men. Is it not so, my cousin ?” 

Dorothy did not answer in words, but she looked up 


THE FIRE ENGINE. 


177 


in his face with a reverence in her eyes that showed she 
understood him. And this was one of the idolatrous 
catholics ! It was neither the first nor the last of many 
lessons she had to receive in order to learn that a man 
may be right although the creed for which he is and 
ought to be ready to die, may contain much that is 
wrong. Alas! that so few, even of such men, ever re- 
flect, that it is the element common to all the creeds 
which gives its central value to each. 

“ I cannot show you the working of the engine to- 
night,” said lord Herbert. “ Caspar has decreed other- 
wise.” 

“ I can soon set her a going again, my lord,” said 
Caspar. 

“No, no. We must to. the powder-mill, Caspar. Mis- 
tress Dorothy will come again to-morrow, and you must 
yourself explain to her the working and management of 
it, for I shall be away. And do not fear to trust my 
cousin, Caspar, although she be a soft-handed lady. Let 
her have the brute’s halter in her own hold.” 

Filled with gratitude for the trust he reposed in her, 
Dorothy took her leave, and the two workmen immedi- 
ately abandoned their shop for the night, leaving the 
door wide open behind them to let out the vapors of the 
fire-engine, in the confidence that no unlicensed foot 
would dare to cross the threshold, and betook themselves 
to the powder-mill, where they continued at work the 
greater part of the night. 

His lordship was unfavorable to the storing of powder 
because of the danger, seeing they could, on his calcula- 
tion, from the materials lying ready for mixing, in one 
week prepare enough to keep all the ordnance on the 
castle-walls busy for two. But indeed he had not such 
a high opinion of gunpowder but that he believed en- 
gines for projection, more powerful as well as less 


178 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


expensive, could be constructed, after the fashion of 
ballista or catapult, by the use of a mode he had discov- 
ered of immeasurably increasing the strength of springs, 
so that stones of a hundred-weight might be thrown into 
a city from a quarter of a mile’s distance without any 
noise audible to those within. It was this device he 
was brooding over when Dorothy came upon him by the 
arblast. Nor did the conviction arise from any prejudice 
against fire-arms, for he had, among many other wonder- 
ful things of the sort, in cannons, sakers, harquebusses, 
muskets, musquetoons, and all kinds, invented a pistol 
to discharge a dozen times with one loading, and without 
so much as new priming being once requisite, or the 
possessor having to change it out of one hand into the 
other, or stop his horse. 

One who had happened to see lord Herbert as he 
went about within his father’s walls, busy yet unhasting, 
earnest yet cheerful, rapid in all his movements yet per- 
fectly composed, would hardly have imagined that a day 
at a time, or perhaps two, was all he was now able to 
spend there, days which were to him as breathing holes 
in the ice to the wintered fishes. For not merely did he 
give himself to the enlisting of large numbers of men, 
but commanded both horse and foot, meeting all ex- 
penses from his own pocket, or with the assistance of 
his father. A few months before the period at which 
my story has arrived, he had in eight days raised six 
regiments, fortified Monmouth and Chepstow, and garri- 
soned half-a-dozen smaller but yet important places. 
About a hundred noblemen and gentlemen whom he 
had enrolled as a troop of life-guards he furnished with 
the horses and arms which they were unable to provide 
with sufficient haste for themselves. So prominent in- 
deed were his services on behalf of the king, that his 
father was uneasy because of the jealousy and hate it 


THE FIRE ENGINE. 


179 


would certainly rouse in the minds of some of his 
majesty’s well-wishers — a just presentiment, as his son 
had too good reason to acknowledge after he had spent 
a million of money, besides the labor and thought and 
dangerous endeavor of years, in the king’s service. 


CHAPTER XVI I I 


MOONLIGHT AND APPLE-BLOSSOMS. 

HE next morning, immediately after breakfast, lord 



1 Herbert set out for Chepstow first and then Mon- 
mouth, both which places belonged to his father and 
were principal sources of his great wealth. 

Still, amid the rush of the changeful tides of war 
around them, and the rumor of battle filling the air, all 
was peaceful within the defenses of Raglan, and its 
towers looked abroad over a quiet country, where the 
cattle fed and the green wheat grew. On the far out- 
skirts of vision, indeed, a smoke might be seen at times 
from the watch-tower, and across the air would come 
the dull boom of a great gun from one of the fortresses, 
at which lady Margaret’s cheek would turn pale; but, 
although every day something was done to strengthen 
the castle, although masons were at work here and there 
about the walls like bees, and Caspar Kaltoff was busy 
in all directions, now mounting fresh guns, now repairing 
steel cross-bows, now getting out of the armory the 
queerest oldest-fashioned engines to place wherever 
available points could be found, there was no hurry and 
no confusion, and indeed so little appearance of unusual 
activity, that an unmilitary stranger might have passed 
a week in the castle without discovering that prepara- 
tions for defense were actively going on. All around 
them the buds were creeping out, uncurling, spreading 
abroad, straightening themselves, smoothing out the 
creases of their upfolding, and breathing the air of 
heaven — in some way very pleasant to creatures with 


MOONLIGHT AND APPLE-BLOSSOMS. 181 


roots as well as to creatures with legs. The apple- 
blossoms came out, and the orchard was lovely as with 
an upward-driven storm of roseate snow. Ladies were 
oftener seen passing through the gates and walking in 
the gardens — where the fountains had begun to play, 
and the swans and ducks on the lakes felt the return of 
spring in every fiber of their webby feet and cold scaly 
legs. 

And Dorothy sat as it were at the spring-head of the 
waters, for, through her dominion over the fire-engine, 
she had become the naiad of Raglan. The same hour 
in which lord Herbert departed she went to Kaltoff, and 
was by him instructed in its mysteries. On the third 
day after, so entirely was the Dutchman satisfied with 
her understanding and management of it, that he gave 
up to her the whole water-business. And now, as I say, 
she sat at the source of all the streams and fountains of 
the place, and governed them all. The horse of marble 
spouted and ceased at her will, but in general she let the 
stream from his mouth flow all day long. Every water- 
cock on the great tower was subject to her. From the 
urn of her pleasure the cistern was daily filled, and from 
the summit of defense her flood went pouring into the 
moat around its feet, until it mantled to the brim, turn- 
ing the weeds into a cold shadowy pavement of green 
for a foil to its pellucid depth. She understood all the 
secrets of the aqueous catapult, at which its contriver 
had little more than hinted on that memorable night 
when he disclosed so much, and believed she could 
arrange it for action without assistance. At the same 
time her new responsibilities required but a portion of 
her leisure, and lady Margaret was not the less pleased 
with the wise-headed girl, whose manners and mental 
ways were such a contrast to her own, that her husband 
considered her fit to be put in charge of his darling 


182 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


invention. But Dorothy kept silence concerning the 
trust to all but her mistress; who, on her part, was 
prudent enough to avoid any allusion which might raise 
yet higher the jealousy of her associates, by whom she 
was already regarded as supplanting them in the favor 
of their mistress. 

One lovely evening in May, the moon at the full, the 
air warm yet fresh, the apple-blossoms at their largest, 
with as yet no spot upon their fair skin, and the nightin- 
gales singing out of their very bones, the season, the 
hour, the blossoms, and the moon had invaded every 
chamber in the castle, seized every heart of both man 
and beast, and turned all into one congregation of which 
the nightingales were the priests. The cocks were crow- 
ing as if it had been the dawn itself instead of its ghost 
they saw; the dogs were howling, but whether that was 
from love or hate of the moon, I cannot tell ; the pigeons 
were cooing; the peacock had turned his train into a 
paralune, understanding well that the carnival could not 
be complete without him and his ; and the wild beasts 
were restless, uttering a short yell now and then, at least 
aware that something was going on. All the inhabitants 
of the castle were out of doors, the ladies and gentlemen 
in groups here and there about the gardens and lawns 
and islands, and the domestics, and such of the garrison 
as were not on duty, wandering hither and thither 
where they pleased, careful only not to intrude on their 
superiors. 

Lady Margaret was walking with her step-son Henry 
on a lawn under the northern window of the picture 
gallery, and there the ladies Elizabeth and Anne joined 
them — the former a cheerful woman, endowed with a 
large share of her father’s genial temperament : joke or 
jest would moult no feather in lady Elizabeth’s keeping; 
the latter quiet, sincere, and reverent. The marquis 


MOONLIGHT AND APPLE-BLOSSOMS. 183 


himself, notwithstanding a slight attack of the gout, had 
hobbled on his stick to a chair set for him on the same 
lawn. Beside him sat lady Mary, younger than the 
other two, and specially devoted to her father. 

Their gentlewomen were also out, flitting in groups 
that now and then mingled and changed. Rowland 
Scudamore joined lady Margaret’s people, and in a 
moment lady Broughton was laughing merrily. But 
mistress Doughty walked on with straight neck, as if 
there were nobody but herself in heaven or on the earth, 
although mortals were merry by her side, and nightin- 
gales singing themselves to death over her head. Behind 
them came Amanda Serafina, with her eyes on her feet, 
and the corners of her pretty mouth drawn down in con- 
tempt of nobody in particular Now and then Scuda- 
more, when satisfied with his own pretty wit, would 
throw a glance behind him, and she, somehow or other, 
would, without change of muscle, let him know that she 
had heard him. This group sauntered into the orchard. 

After them came Dorothy with Dr. Bayly, talking of 
their common friend Mr. Matthew Herbert, and follow- 
ing them into the orchard, wandered about among the 
trees, under the curdled moonlight of the apple-blossoms, 
amid the challenges and responses of five or six nightin- 
gales, that sang as if their bodies had dwindled under 
the sublimating influences of music, until, with more 
than cherubic denudation, their sum of being was re- 
duced to a soul and a throat. 

Moonlight, apple-blossoms, nightingales, with the souls 
of men and women for mirrors and reflectors ! The 
picture is for the musician not the painter, either him of 
words or him of colors. It was like a lovely show in the 
land of dreams, even to the living souls that moved in 
and made part of it. The earth is older now, colder at 
the heart, a little nearer to the fate of cold-hearted 


184 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


things, which is to be slaves and serve without love ; but 
she has still the same moonlight, the same apple-blossoms, 
the same nightingales, and we have the same hearts, and 
so can understand it. But, alas ! how differently should 
we come in amongst the accessories of such a picture ! 
For we men at least are all but given over to ugliness, 
and, artistically considered, even vulgarity, in the matter 
of dress, wherein they, of all generations of English men 
and women, were too easily supreme both as to form 
and color. Hence, while they are an admiration to us, 
we ’shall be but a laughter to those that come behind us, 
and that whether their fashions be better than ours or 
no, for nothing is so ridiculous as ugliness out of date. 
The glimmer of gold and silver, the glitter of polished 
steel, the flashing of jewels, and the flowing of plumes, 
went well. But, so canopied with loveliness, so besung 
with winged passion, so clothed that even with the 
heavenly delicacies enrounding them they blended har- 
moniously, their moonlit orchard was an island beat by 
the waves of war, its air would quiver and throb by fits, 
shaken with the roar of cannon, and might soon gleam 
around them with the whirring sweep of the troopers y 
broad blades; while all throughout the land, the hateful 
demon of party-spirit tore wide into gashes the wounds 
first made by conscience in the best, and by prejudice in 
the good. 

The elder ladies had floated away together between 
the mossy stems, under the canopies of blossoms ; Row- 
land had fallen behind and joined the waiting Amanda, 
and the two were now flitting about like moths in the 
moonshine; Dorothy and Dr. Bayly had halted in an 
open spot, like a moonlight impluvium, the divine talking 
eagerly to the maiden, and the maiden looking up at the 
moon, and heeding the nightingales more than the 
divine. 


MOONLIGHT AND APPLE-BLOSSOMS. 185 

“Can they be English nightingales?” said Dorothy 
thoughtfully. 

The doctor was bewildered for a moment. He had 
been talking about himself, not the nightingale, but he 
recovered himself like a gentleman. 

“Assuredly, mistress Dorothy,” he replied; “this is 
the land of their birth. Hither they come again when 
the winter is over.” 

“Yes; they take no part in our troubles. They will 
not sing to comfort our hearts in the cold ; but give them 
warmth enough, and they sing as careless of battle-fields 
and dead men as if they were but moonlight and apple- 
blossoms !” 

“ Is it not better so ?” returned the divine after a 
moment’s thought. “How would it be if everything in 
nature but re-echoed our moan?” 

Dorothy looked at the little man, and was in her turn 
a moment silent. 

“Then,” she said, “we must see in these birds, and 
blossoms, and that great blossom in the sky, so many 
prophets of a peaceful time and a better country, sent to 
remind us that we pass away and go to them.” 

“Nay, my dear mistress Dorothy!” returned the all 
but obsequious doctor; “ such thoughts do not well befit 
your age, or rather, I would say, your youth. Life is 
before you, and life is good. These evil times will go 
by, the king shall have his own again, the fanatics will 
be scourged as they deserve, and the church will rise 
like the phoenix from the ashes of her purification.” 

“ But how many will lie out in the fields all the year 
long, yet never see blossoms or hear nightingales more !” 
said Dorothy. 

“ Such will have died martyrs,” rejoined the doctor. 

“ On both sides ?” suggested Dorothy. 

Again for a moment the good man stood checked. 


186 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


He had not even thought of the dead on the other 
side. 

“That cannot be,” he said. And Dorothy looked up 
again at the moon. 

But she listened no more to the songs of the nightin- 
gales, and they left the orchard together in silence. 

“Come, Rowland, we must not be found here alone,” 
said Amanda, who saw them go. “ But tell me one thing 
first: is mistress Dorothy Vaughan indeed your cousin? 

“ She is indeed. Her mother and mine were cousins 
german — sisters’ children.” 

“I thought it could not be a near cousinship. You 
are not alike at all. Hear me, Rowland, but let it die 
in your ear — I love not mistress Dorothy.” 

“ And the reason, lovely hater ? ‘ Is not the maiden 

fair to see ? ’ as the old song says. I do not mean that 
she is fair as some are fair, but she will pass ; she offends 
not.” 

“ She is fair enough — not beautiful, not even pleasing; 
but, to be just, the demure look she puts on may bear 
the fault of that. Rowland, I would not speak evil of 
any one, but your cousin is a hypocrite. She is false at 
heart, and she hates me. Trust me, she but bides her 
time to let me know it — and you too, my Rowland.” 

“I am sure you mistake her, Amanda,” said Scuda- 
more. “ Her looks are but modest, and her words but 
shy, for she came hither from a lonely house. I believe 
she is honest and good.” 

“ Seest thou not then how that she makes friends with 
none but her betters ? Already hath she wound herself 
around my lady’s heart, forsooth ! and now she pays her 
court to the puffing chaplain ! Hast thou never ob- 
served, my Rowland, how oft she crosses the bridge to 
the yellow tower? What seeks she there? Old Kaltoff, 
the Dutchman, it can hardly be. I know she thinks to 


MOONLIGHT AND APPLE-BLOSSOMS. 187 

curry with my lord by pretending to love locks and 
screws and pistols and such like. ‘ But why should she 
haunt the place when my lord is not there ?’ you will 
ask. Her pretense will hold the better for it, no doubt, 
and Caspar will report concerning her. And if she 
pleases my lord well, who knows but he may give her a 
pair of watches to hang at her ears, or a box that Para- 
celsus himself could not open without the secret as well 
as the key ? I have heard of both such. They say my 
lord hath twenty cartloads of quite as wonderful things 
in that vault he calls his workshop. Hast thou never 
marked the huge cabinet of black inlaid with silver, that 
stands by the wall — fitter indeed for my lady’s chamber 
than such a foul place?” 

“ I have seen it,” answered Scudamore. 

“I warrant me it hath store of gewgaws fit for a 
duchess.” 

“ Like enough,” assented Rowland. 

“ If mistress Dorothy were to find the way through my 
lord’s favor into that cabinet — truly it were nothing to 
thee or me, Rowland.” 

“ Assuredly not. It would be my lord’s own business.” 

“ Once upon a time I was sent to carry my young lady 
Raven thither — to see my lord earn his bread, as said 
my lady ; and what should my lord but give her no less 
than a ball of silver which, thrown into a vessel of water 
at any moment, would plainly tell, by how much it rose 
above the top, the very hour and minute of the day or 
night, as well and truly as the castle-clock itself. Tell 
me not, Rowland, that the damsel hath no design in it. 
Her looks betoken a better wisdom. Doth she not, I 
ask your honesty, far more resemble a nose-pinched pur- 
itan than a loyal maiden?” 

Thus amongst the apple-blossoms talked Amanda Ser* 
afina. 


188 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


“ Prithee, be not too severe with my cousin, Amanda,” 
pleaded Scudamore. “ She is much too sober to please 
my fancy, but wherefore should I for that hate her? 
And if she hath something the look of a long-faced 
fanatic, thou must think, she hath but now, as it were, 
lost her mother.” 

“ But now ! And I never knew mine ! Ah, Rowland, 
how lonely is the world !” 

“Lovely Amanda!” said Rowland. 

So they passed from the orchard and parted, fearful 
of being missed. 

How should such a pair do, but after its kind ? Life 
was dull without love-making, so they made it. And 
the more they made, the more they wanted to make, 
until casual encounters would no longer serve their turn. 


CHAPTER XIX. 


THE ENCHANTED CHAIR. 

I N the castle things went on much the same, nor did 
the gathering tumult without wake more than an echo 
within. Yet a cloud slowly deepened upon the brow of 
the marquis, and a look of disquiet, to be explained 
neither by the more frequent returns of his gout, nor by 
the more lengthened absences of his favorite son. In 
his judgment the king was losing ground, not only in 
England but in the deeper England of its men. Lady 
Margaret also, for all her natural good spirits and light- 
heartedness, showed a more continuous anxiety than was 
to be accounted for by her lord’s absences and the 
dangers he had to encounter: little Molly, the treasure 
of her heart next to her lord, had never been other than 
a delicate child, but now had begun to show signs of 
worse than weakness of constitution, and the heart of 
the mother was perpetually brooding over the ever pres- 
ent idea of her sickly darling. But she always did her 
endeavor to clear the sky of her countenance before 
sitting down with her father-in-law at the dinner-table, 
where still the marquis had his jest almost as regularly 
as his claret, although varying more in quality and 
quantity both — now teasing his son Charles about the 
holes in his pasteboard, as he styled the castle walls; 
now his daughter Anne about a design he and no one 
else attributed to her of turning protestant and marrying 
Dr. Bayly ; now Dr. Bayly about his having been discov- 
ered blowing the organ in the chapel at high mass, as he 
said; for when no new joke was at hand he was fain to 


190 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


content himself with falling back upon old ones. The 
first of these mentioned was founded on the fact, as 
undeniable as deplorable, of the weakness of many por- 
tions of the defenses, to remedy which, as far as might 
be, was for the present lord Charles’s chief endeavor, 
wherein he had the best possible adviser, engineer, su- 
perintendent, and workman, all in the person of Caspar 
Kaltoff. The second jest of the marquis was a pure 
invention upon thediking of lady Anne for the company 
and conversation of the worthy chaplain. The last 
mentioned was but an exaggeration of the following 
fact. One evening the doctor came upon young Dela- 
ware, loitering about the door of the chapel, with as 
disconsolate a look as his lovely sightless face was ever 
seen to wear, and, inquiring what was amiss with him, 
learned that he could find no one to blow the organ 
bellows for him. The youth had for years, boy as he 
still was, found the main solace of his blindness in the 
chapel-organ, upon which he would have played from 
morning to night could he have got any one to blow as 
long. The doctor, then, finding the poor boy panting 
for music like the hart for the water-brooks, but with no 
Jacob to roll the stone from the well’s mouth that he 
might water the flocks of his thirsty thoughts, made 
willing proffer of his own exertions to blow the bellows 
of the organ, so long as the somewhat wheezy bellows of 
his body would submit to the task. By degrees however 
the good doctor had become so absorbed in the sounds 
that rushed, now wailing, now jubilant, now tender as a 
twilight wind, now imperious as the voice of the war- 
tempest, from the fingers of the raptured boy, that the 
reading of the first vesper-psalm had commenced while 
he was yet watching the slow rising index, in the expec- 
tation that the organist was about to resume. The 
voice of his Irish brother-chaplain, Sir Toby Mathews, 


THE ENCHANTED CHAIR. 


191 


roused him from his reverie of delight, and as one 
ashamed he stole away through the door that led from 
the little organ-loft into the minstrel’s gallery in the 
great hall, and so escaped the catholic service, but not 
the marquis’s roasting. Whether the music had any 
share in the fact that the good man died a good catholic 
at last, I leave to the speculation of who list. 

Lady Margaret continued unchangingly kind to Dor- 
othy; and the tireless efforts of the girl to amuse and 
please poor little Molly, whom the growing warmth of 
the season seemed to have no power to revive, awoke 
the deep gratitude of a mother. This, as well as her 
husband’s absences, may have had something to do with 
the interest she began to take in the engine of which 
Dorothy had assumed the charge, for which she had 
always hitherto expressed a special dislike, professing to 
regard it as her rival in the affections of her husband, 
but after which she would now inquire as Dorothy’s 
baby, and even listen with patience to her expositions of 
its wonderful construction and capabilities. Ere long 
Dorothy had a tale to tell her in connection with the 
engine, which, although simple and uneventful enough, 
she yet found considerably more interesting, as involving 
a good deal of at least mental adventure on the part of 
her young cousin. 

One evening, after playing with little Molly for an 
hour, then putting her to bed and standing by her crib 
until she fell asleep, Dorothy ran to see to her other 
baby; for the cistern had fallen rather lower than she 
thought well, and she was going to fill it. She found 
Caspar had lighted the furnace as she had requested; 
she set the engine going, and it soon warmed to its work. 

The place was hot, and Dorothy was tired. But 
where in that wide and not over-clean place should she 
find anything fitter than a grindstone to sit upon? 


192 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


Never yet, through all her acquaintance with the work- 
shop, had she once seated herself in it. Looking about, 
however, she soon espied, almost hidden in the corner 
of a recess behind the furnace, what seemed an ordinary 
chair, such as stood in the great hall for the use of the 
family when anything special was going on there. With 
some trouble she got it out, dusted it, and set it as far 
from the furnace as might be, consistently with watching 
the motions of the engine. But the moment she sat 
down in it, she was caught and pinned so fast, that she 
could scarcely stir hand or foot, and could no more 
leave it again than if she had been paralyzed in every 
limb. One scream she uttered of mingled indignation 
and terror, fancying herself seized by human arms ; but 
when she found herself only in the power of one of her 
cousin’s curiosities, she speedily quieted herself and 
rested in peace, for Caspar always paid a visit to the 
workshop the last thing before going to bed. The pres- 
sure of the springs that had closed the trap did not hurt 
her in the least — she was indeed hardly sensible of it ; 
but when she made the least attempt to stir, the thing 
showed itself immovably locked, and she had too much 
confidence in the workmanship of her cousin and Caspar 
to dream of attempting to open it: that she knew must 
be impossible. The worst that threatened her was that 
the engine might require some attention before the hour 
or perhaps two which must elapse ere Caspar came 
would be over, and she did not know what the conse- 
quences might be. 

As it happened, however, something either in the 
powder-mill or about the defenses, detained Caspar far 
beyond his usual hour for retiring, and the sultriness of 
the weather having caused him a headache, he repre- 
sented to himself that, with Mistress Dorothy tending 
the engine, who knew where and would be sure to find 


THE ENCHANTED CHAIR. 


193 


him upon the least occasion, there could be no harm in 
his going to bed without paying his usual precautionary 
visit to the keep. 

So Dorothy sat, and waited in vain. The last drops 
of the day trickled down the side of the world, the night 
filled the crystal globe from its bottom of rock to its 
cover of blue aether, and the red glow of the furnace 
was all that lighted the place. She waited and waited 
in her mind ; but Caspar did not come. She began to 
feel miserable. The furnace fire sank, and the rush of 
the water grew slower and slower, and ceased. Caspar 
did not come. The fire sank lower and lower, its red 
eye dimmed, darkened, went out. Still Caspar did not 
come. Faint fears began to gather about poor Dorothy’s 
heart. It was clear at last that there she must be all 
the night long, and who could tell how far into the 
morning? It was good the night was warm, but it 
would be very dreary. And then to be fixed in one 
position for so long ! The thought of it grew in misery 
faster than the thing itself. The greater torment lies 
always in the foreboding. She felt almost as if she were 
buried alive. Having their hands tied even, is enough 
to drive strong men almost crazy. Nor, firm of heart as 
she was, did no evils of a more undefined and less 
resistible character claim a share in her fast-rising ap- 
prehensions; she began to discover that she too was 
assailable by the terror of the night, although she had 
not hitherto been aware of it, no one knowing what may 
lie unhatched in his mind, waiting the concurrence of 
vital conditions. But Dorothy was better able to bear 
up under such assaults than thousands who believe 
nothing of many a hideous marvel commonly accepted 
in her day; and anyhow the unavoidable must be en- 
countered, if not with indifference, yet with what courage 
may be found responsive to the call of the will. So, 


194 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


with all her energy, a larger store than she knew, she 
braced herself to endure. As to any attempt to make 
herself heard, she knew from the first that was of doubt- 
ful result, and now must certainly be of no avail when 
all but the warders were asleep. But to spend the night 
thus was a far less evil than to be discovered by the 
staring domestics, and exposed to the open merriment 
of her friends, and the hidden mockery of her enemies. 
As to Caspar she was certain of his silence. So she sat 
on, like the lady in Comus, “ in stony fetters fixed and 
motionless;” only, as she said to herself, there was no 
attendant spirit to summon Caspar, who alone could 
take the part of Sabrina, and “unlock the clasping 
charm.” Little did Dorothy think, as in her dreary 
imprisonment she recalled that marvelous embodiment 
of unified strength and tenderness, as yet unacknowl- 
edged of its author, that it was the work of the same 
detestable fanatic who wrote those appalling “Animad- 
versions &c.” 

She grew chilly and cramped. The night passed very 
slowly. She dozed and woke and dozed again. At 
last, from very weariness of both soul and body, she fell 
into a troubled sleep, from which she woke suddenly 
with the sound in her ears of voices whispering. The 
confidence of lord Herbert both in the evil renown of 
his wizard cave and the character of his father’s house- 
hold seemed mistaken. Still the subdued manner of 
their conversation appeared to indicate it was not with- 
out some awe that the speakers, whoever they were, had 
ventured within the forbidden precincts ; their whispers, 
indeed, were so low that she could not say of either 
voice whether it belonged to man or woman. Her first 
idea was to deliver herself from the unpleasantness of 
her enforced espial by the utterance of some frightful 
cry such as would at the same time punish with the 


THE ENCHANTED CHAIR. 


195 


pains of terror their fool-hardy intrusion. But the spur 
of the moment was seldom indeed so sharp with Dorothy 
as to drive her to act without reflection) and a moment 
showed her that such persons being in the marquis’s 
household as would meet in the middle of the night, and 
on prohibited ground, apparently for the sake of avoid- 
ing discovery, and even then talked in whispers, he had 
a right to know who they were: to act from her own 
feelings merely would be to fail in loyalty to the head of 
the house. Who could tell what might not be involved 
in it? For was it not thus that conspiracy and treason 
walked ? And any alarm given them now might destroy 
every chance of their discovery. She compelled herself 
therefore to absolute stillness, immeasurably wretched, 
with but one comfort — no small one, however, although 
negative — that their words continued inaudible, a fact 
which doubtless saved much dispute betwixt her propri- 
ety and her loyalty. 

Long time their talk lasted. Every now and then 
they would start and listen — so Dorothy interpreted 
sudden silence and broken renewals. The genius of the 
place, although braved, had yet its terrors. At length 
she heard something like a half-conquered yawn, and 
soon after the voices ceased. 

Again a weary time, and once more she fell asleep. 
She woke in the gray of the morning, and after yet two 
long hours, but of more hopeful waiting, she heard Cas- 
par’s welcome footsteps, and summoned all her strength 
to avoid breaking down on his entrance. His first look 
of amazement she tried to answer with a smile, but at 
the expression of pitiful dismay which followed when 
another glance had revealed the cause of her presence, 
she burst into tears. The honest man was full of com- 
punctious distress at the sight of the suffering his breach 
of custom had so cruelly prolonged. 


196 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


“And I haf bin slap in mine bed!” he exclaimed with 
horror at the contrast. 

Had she been his daughter and his mistress both in 
one, he could not have treated her with greater respect 
or tenderness. Of course he set about relieving her at 
once, but this was by no means such an easy matter as 
Dorothy had expected. For the key of the chair was in 
the black cabinet; the black cabinet was secured with 
one of lord Herbert’s marvelous locks ; the key of that 
lock was in lord Herbert’s pocket, and lord Herbert was 
either in bed at Chepstow or Monmouth or Usk or 
Caerlyon, or on horseback somewhere else, nobody in 
Raglan knew where. But Caspar lost no time in un- 
availing moan. He proceeded at once to light a fire on 
his forge hearth, and in the course of a few minutes had 
fashioned a picklock, by means of which, after several 
trials and alterations, at length came the welcome sound 
of the yielding bolts, and Dorothy rose from the terrible 
chair. But so benumbed were all her limbs that she 
escaped being relocked in it only by the quick interposi- 
tion of Caspar’s arms. He led her about like a child 
until at length she found them sufficiently restored to 
adventure the journey to her chamber, and thither she 
slowly crept. Few of the household were yet astir, and 
she met no one. When she was covered up in bed, then 
first she knew how cold she was, and felt as if she should 
never be warm again. 

At last she fell asleep, and slept long and soundly. 
Her maid went to call her, but finding it difficult to 
wake her, left her asleep, and did not return until break- 
fast was over. Then finding her still asleep she became 
a little anxious, and meeting mistress Amanda, told her 
she was afraid mistress Dorothy was ill. But mistress 
Amanda was herself sleepy and cross, and gave her a 
sharp answer, whereupon the girl went to lady Brough- 


THE ENCHANTED CHAIR. 


197 


ton. She, however, being on her way to morning mass, 
for it was Sunday, told her to let mistress Dorothy have 
her sleep out. 

The noise of horses’ hoofs upon the paving of the 
stone court roused her, and then in came the sounds of 
the organ from the chapel. She rose confounded, and 
hurrying to the window drew back the curtain. The 
same moment lord Herbert walked from the hall into 
the fountain court in riding dress, followed by some 
forty or fifty officers, the noise of whose armor and feet 
and voices dispelled at once the dim Sabbath feeling 
that hung vapor-like about the place. They gathered 
around the white horse, leaning or sitting on the marble 
basin, some talking in eager groups, others folding their 
arms in silence, listening, or lost heedless in their own 
thoughts, while their leader entered the staircase door 
at the right hand corner of the western gate, the nearest 
way to his wife’s apartment of the building. 

Now Dorothy had gone to sleep in perplexity, and all 
through her dreams had been trying to answer the ques- 
tion what course she should take with regard to the 
nocturnal intrusion. If she told lady Margaret she 
could but go with it to the marquis, and he was but just 
recovering from an attack of the gout, and ought not to 
be troubled except it were absolutely necessary. Was 
it, or was it not, necessary? Or was there no one else 
to whom she might with propriety betake herself in her 
doubt — lord Charles or Dr. Bayly ? But here now was 
lord Herbert come back, and doubt there was none any 
more. She dressed herself in tremulous haste, and hur- 
ried to lady Margaret’s room, where she hoped to see 
him. No one was there, and she tried the nursery, but 
finding only Molly and her attendant, returned to the 
parlor, and there seated herself to wait, supposing lady 
Margaret and he had gone together to morning service. 


198 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


They had really gone to the oak parlor, whither the 
marquis generally made his first move after an attack 
that had confined him to his room; for in the large 
window of that parlor, occupying nearly the whole side 
of it towards the moat, he generally sat when well 
enough to be about and take cognizance of what was 
going on; and there they now found him. 

“Welcome home, Herbert!” he said, kindly, holding 
out his hand. “ And how does my wild Irishwoman this 
morning ? Crying her eyes out because her husband is 
come back, eh. But Herbert, lad, whence is all that 
noise of spurs and scabbards — and in the fountain court, 
too ? I heard them go clanking and clattering through 
the hall like a torrent of steel ! Here I sit, a poor gouty 
old man, deserted of my children and servants — all gone 
to church — ta serve a better master — not a page or a 
maid left me to send out to see and bring me word what 
is the occasion thereof ! I was on the point of hobbling 
to the door myself when you came.” 

“ Being on my way to the forest of Dean, my lord, and 
coming round by Raglan to inquire after you and my 
lady, I did bring with me some of my officers to dine 
and drink your lordship’s health on our way.” 

“You shall all be welcome, though I fear I shall not 
make one,” said the marquis, with a grimace, for just 
then he had a twinge of the gout. 

“ I am sorry to see you suffer, sir,” said his son. 

“ Man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward,” 
returned the marquis, giving a kick with the leg which 
contained his inheritance ; and then came a pause, during 
which lady Margaret left the room. 

“My lord,” said Herbert at length, with embarrass- 
ment, and forcing himself to speak, “ I am sorry to 
trouble you again, after all the money, enough to build 
this castle from the foundations ” 


THE ENCHANTED CHAIR. 199 

“Ah! ha!” interjected the marquis, but lord Herbert 
went on — 

“ which you have already spent on behalf of the king, 
my master, but ” 

“ Your master, Herbert!” said the marquis, testily. 
“Well?” 

“ I must have some more money for his pressing 
necessities.” In his self-compulsion he had stumbled 
upon the wrong word. 

“ Must you?” cried the marquis angrily. “Pray take 
it.” 

And drawing the keys of his treasury from the pocket 
of his frieze coat, he threw them down on the table 
before him. Lord Herbert reddened like a girl, and 
looked as much abashed as if he had been caught in 
something of which he was ashamed. One moment he 
stood thus, then said, 

“ Sir, the word was out before I was aware. I do not 
intend to put it in force. I pray will you put up your 
key again?’ 

“Truly, son,” replied the marquis, still testily, but in 
a milder tone, “ I shall think my keys not safe in my 
pocket whilst you have so many swords by your side ; 
nor that I have the command of my house whilst you 
have so many officers in it ; nor that I am at my own 
disposal, whilst you have so many commanders.” 

“My lord,” replied Herbert, “I do not intend that 
they shall stay in the castle; I mean they shall be 
gone.” 

“ I pray, let them. And have care that must do not 
stay behind,” said the marquis. “But let them have 
their dinner first, lad.” 

Lord Herbert bowed, and left the room. Thereupon, 
in the presence of lady Margaret, who just then re- 
entered, good Dr. Bayly, who, unperceived by lord 


200 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


Herbert in his preoccupation, had been present during 
the interview, stepped up to the marquis and said : 

“ My good lord, the honorable confidence your lord- 
ship has reposed in me boldens me to do my duty as, in 
part at least, your lordship’s humble spiritual adviser.” 

“ Thou should’st want no boldening to do thy duty, 
doctor,” said the marquis, making a wry face. 

“ May I then beg of your lordship to consider whether 
you have not been more severe with your noble son than 
the occasion demanded, seeing not only was the word 
uttered by a lapse of the tongue, but yourself heard my 
lord express much sorrow for the overslip?” 

“What!” said lady Herbert, something merrily, but 
looking in the face of her father-in-law with a little 
anxious questioning in her eyes, “has my lord been 
falling out with my Ned?” 

“Hark ye, daughter!” answered the marquis, his face 
beaming with restored good humor, for the twinge in his 
toe had abated, “and you too, my good chaplain! — if 
my son be dejected, I can raise him when I please ; but 
it is a question, if he should once take a head, whether I 
could bring him lower when I list. Ned was not wont 
to use such courtship to me, and I believe he intended 
a better word for his father; but must was for the king.” 

Returning to her own room, lady Margaret found 
Dorothy waiting for her. 

“Well, my little lig-a-bed!” she said sweetly, “what is 
amiss with thee? Thou lookest but soberly.” 

“I am well, madam; and that I look soberly,” said 
Dorothy, “ you will not wonder when I tell you where- 
fore. But first, if it please you, I would pray for my 
lord’s presence, that he too may know all.” 

“ Holy mother! what is the matter, child?” cried lady 
Margaret, of late easily fluttered. “ Is it my lord Her- 
bert you mean, or my lord of Worcester ?” 


THE ENCHANTED CHAIR . 201 

“ My lord Herbert, my lady. I dread lest he should 
be gone ere I have found a time to tell him.” 

“ He rides again after dinner,” said lady Margaret. 

“Then, dear my lady, if you would keep me from 
great doubt and disquiet, let me have the ear of my lord 
for a few moments.” 

Lady Margaret rang for her page, and sent him to 
find his master and request his presence in her parlor. 

Within five minutes lord Herbert was with them, and 
within five more, Dorothy had ended her tale of the 
night, uninterrupted save by lady Margaret’s exclama- 
tions of sympathy. 

“And now, my lord, what am I to do?” she asked in 
conclusion. 

Lord Herbert made no answer for a few moments, 
but walked up and down the room. Dorothy thought 
he looked angry as well as troubled. He burst at length 
into a laugh, however, and said merrily, 

11 1 have it, ladies ! I see how we may save my father 
much annoyance without concealment, for nothing must 
be concealed from him that in any way concerns the 
house. But the annoyance arising from any direct 
attempt at discovering the wrong-doers would be end- 
less, and its failure almost certain. But now, as I would 
plan it, instead of trouble my father shall have laughter, 
and instead of annoyance such a jest as may make him 
good amends for the wrong done him by the breach of 
his household laws. Caspar has explained to you all 
concerning the water-works, I believe, cousin?” 

“All, my lord. I may without presumption affirm 
that I can, so long as there arises no mishap, with my 
own hand govern them all. Caspar has for many weeks 
left everything to me, save indeed the lighting of the 
furnace-fire.” 

“ That is as I would have it, cousin. So soon then as 


202 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


it is dark this evening, you will together, you and Cas- 
par, set the springs which lie under the first stone of the 
paving of the bridge. Thereafter, as you know, the first 
foot set upon it will drop the drawbridge to the stone 
bridge, and the same instant convert the two into an 
aqueduct, filled with a rushing torrent from the reservoir, 
which will sweep the intruders away. Before they shall 
have either gathered their discomfited wits or raised 
their prostrate bones, my father will be out upon them, 
nor shall they find shelter for their shame ere every soul 
in the castle has witnessed their disgrace.” 

“ I had thought of the plan, my lord ; but I dreaded 
the punishment might be too severe, not knowing what 
the water might do upon them.” 

“There will be no danger to life, and little to limb,” 
said his lordship. “ The torrent will cease flowing the 
moment they are swept from the bridge. But they shall 
be both bruised and shamed ; and,” added his lordship, 
with an oath, such as seldom crossed his lips, “ in such 
times as these, they will well deserve what shall befall 

them. Intruding hounds ! But you must take heed, 

cousin Dorothy, that you forget not that you have your- 
self done. Should you have occasion to go on the 
bridge after setting your vermin-trap, you must not omit 
to place your feet precisely where Caspar will show you, 
else you will have to ride a watery horse half way, 
mayhap, to the marble one — except indeed he throw you 
from his back against the chapel-door.” 

When her husband talked in long sentences, as he was 
not unfrequently given to do, lady Margaret, even when 
their sequences were not very clear, seldom interrupted 
him : she had learned that she gained more by letting 
him talk on ; for however circuitous the route he might 
take, he never forgot where he was going. He might 
obscure his object, but there it always was. He was 


THE ENCHANTED CHAIR. 


203 


now again walking up and down the room, and, perceiv- 
ing that he had not yet arranged all to his satisfaction, 
she watched him with merriment in her Irish eyes, and 
waited. 

“ I have it !” he cried again. “ It shall be so, and my 
father shall thus have immediate notice. The nights 
are weekly growing warmer, and he will not therein be 
tempted to his hurt. — Our trusty and well-beloved cousin 
Dorothy, we herewith, in presence of our liege and lovely 
lady, appoint thee our deputy during our absence. No 
one but thyself hath a right to cross that bridge after 
dark, save Caspar and the governor, whom with my 
father I shall inform and warn concerning what is to be 
done. But I will myself adjust the escape, so that the 
torrent shall not fall too powerful ; Caspar must connect 
it with the drawbridge, whose fall will then open it. 
And pray remind him to see first that all the hinges and 
joints concerned be well greased, that it may fall in- 
stantly.” 

So saying, he left the room, and sought out Caspar, 
with whom he contrived the ringing of a bell in the 
marquis’s chamber by the drawbridge in its fall, the 
arrangement for which Caspar was to carry out that 
same evening after dark. He next sought his father, 
and told him and his brother Charles the whole story; 
nor did he find himself wrong in his expectation that 
the prospect of so good a jest would go far to console 
the marquis for the annoyance of finding that his house- 
hold was not quite such a pattern one as he had supposed. 
That there was anything of conspiracy or treachery 
involved, he did not for a moment believe. 

After dinner, while the horses were brought out, lord 
Herbert went again to his wife’s room. There was little 
Molly waiting to bid him good bye, and she sat upon 
his knee until it was time for him to go. The child’s 


204 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


looks made his heart sad, and his wife could not restrain 
her tears when she saw him gaze upon her so mourn- 
fully. It was with a heavy heart that, when the moment 
of departure came, he rose, gave her into her mother’s 
arms, clasped them both in one embrace, and hurried 
from the room. He ought to be a noble king for whom 
such men and women make such sacrifices. 

To witness such devotion on the part of personages to 
whom she looked up with such respect and confidence, 
would have been in itself more than sufficient to secure 
for its object the unquestioning partisanship of Dorothy; 
partisan already, it raised her prejudice to a degree of 
worship which greatly narrowed what she took for one 
of the widest gulfs separating her from the creed of her 
friends. The favorite dogma of the schoolmaster-king, 
the offspring of his pride and weakness, had found fitting 
soil in Dorothy. When, in the natural growth of the 
confidence reposed in her by her protectors, she came to 
have some idea of the immensity of the sums spent by 
them on behalf of his son, had, indeed, ere the close of 
another year read the king’s own handwriting and signa- 
ture in acknowledgment of a debt of a quarter of a 
million, she took it only as an additional sign — for 
additional proof there was no room — of their ever ad- 
mirable devotion to his divine right. That the marquis 
and his son were catholics served but to glorify the 
right to which a hostile faith yielded such practical 
homage. 

Immediately after nightfall she repaired to Caspar, 
and between them everything was speedily arranged for 
the carrying out of lord Herbert’s counter-plot. 

But night after night passed, and the bell in the mar- 
quis’s room remained voiceless. 


CHAPTER XX. 


MOLLY AND THE WHITE HORSE. 

M EANTIME lord Herbert came and went. There 
was fighting here and fighting there, castles taken, 
defended, re-taken, here a little success and there a 
worse loss, now on this side and now on that ; but still, 
to say the best, the king’s affairs made little progress; 
and for Mary Somerset, her body and soul made progress 
in opposite directions. 

There was a strange pleasant mixture of sweet fretful- 
ness and trusting appeal in her. Children suffer less 
because they feel that all is right when father or mother 
is with them ; grown people from whom this faith has 
vanished ere it has led them to its original fact, may 
well be miserable in their sicknesses. She lay moaning 
one night in her crib, when suddenly she opened her 
eyes and saw her mother’s hand pressed to her forehead. 
She was imitative, like most children, and had some 
very old-fashioned ways of speech. 

“ Have you got a headache, madam ?” she asked. 
“Yes, my Molly,” answered her mother. 

“Then you will go to mother Mary. She will take 
you on her knee, madam. Mothers is for headaches. 
Oh me ! my headache, madam !” 

The poor mother turned away. It was more than she 
could bear alone. Dorothy entered the room, and she 
rose and left it, that she might go to mother Mary as the 
child had said. 

Dorothy’s cares were divided between the duties of 


206 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


naiad and nursemaid, for the child clung to her as to no 
one else except her mother. The thing that pleased her 
best was to see the two whale-like spouts rise suddenly 
from the nostrils of the great white horse, curve away 
from each other aloft in the air, and fall back into the 
basin one on each side of him. “See horse spout,” she 
would say moanfully, and that instant, if Dorothy was 
not present, a messenger would be dispatched to her. 
On a bright day this would happen repeatedly. For the 
sake of renewing her delight, the instant she turned from 
it, satisfied for the moment, the fountain ceased to play, 
and the horse remained spoutless, awaiting the revival 
of the darling’s desire ; for she was not content to see 
him spouting: she must see him spout. Then again she 
would be carried forth to the verge of the marble basin, 
and gazing up at the rearing animal would say, in a tone 
daintily wavering betwixt entreaty and command, “Spout, 
horse, spout,” and Dorothy, looking down from the 
far-off summit of the tower, and distinguishing by the 
attitude of the child the moment when she uttered her 
desire, would instantly, with one turn of her hand, send 
the captive water shooting down its dark channel to 
reascend in sunny freedom. 

If little Mary Somerset was counted a strange child, 
the wisdom with which she was wise was no more unnat- 
ural because few possess it, than the death of such is 
premature because they are yet children. They are 
small fruits whose ripening has outstripped their growth. 
Of such there are some who, by the hot-house assiduities 
of their friends, heating them with sulphurous stoves, 
and watering them with subacid solutions, ripen into 
insufferable prigs. For them and for their families it is 
well that Death the gardener should speedily remove 
them into the open air. But there are others who, 
ripening from natural, that is divine causes and influ- 


MOLLY AND THE WHITE HORSE. 


207 


e*^es, are the daintiest little men and women, gentle in 
the utmost peevishness of their lassitude, generous to 
share the gifts they most prize, and divinely childlike in 
their repentances. Their falling from the stalk is but 
the passing from the arms of their mothers into those of 
— God knows whom — which is more than enough. 

The chief part of little Molly’s religious lessons, I do 
not mean training, consisted in a prayer or two in 
rhyme, and a few verses of the kind then in use among 
catholics. Here is a prayer which her nurse taught her, 
as old, I take it, as Chaucer’s time at least : — 

Hail be thou, Mary, that high sittest in throne ! 

I beseech thee, sweet lady, grant me my boon — 

Jesus to love and dread, and my life to amend soon, 

And bring me to that bliss that never shall be done. 

And here are some verses quite as old, which her 
mother taught her. I give them believing that in under- 
standing and coming nearer to our fathers and mothers 
who are dead, we understand and come nearer to our 
brothers and sisters who are alive. I change nothing 
but the spelling, and a few of the forms of the words. 

Jesu, Lord, that madest me, 

And with thy blessed blood has bought, 

Forgive that I have grieved thee 

With word, with will, and eke with thought. 

Jesu, for thy wounds’ smart, 

On feet and on thine hands two, 

Make me meek and low of heart, 

And thee to love as I should do. 

Jesu, grant me mine asking, 

Perfect patience in my disease, 

And never may I do that thing 

That should thee in any wise displease. 

Jesu, most comfort for to see 
Qf thy saints every one, 


208 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL . 

Comfort them that careful be, 

And help them that be woe-begone. 

Jesu, keep them that be good, 

And amend them that have grieved thee 9 
And send them fruits of early food, 

As each man needeth in his degree. 

Jesu, that art, without lies, 

Almighty God in trinity, 

Cease these wars, and send us peace 
With lasting love and charity. 

Jesu, that art the ghostly stone 

Of all holy church in middle-earth, 

Bring thy folds and flocks in one, 

And rule them rightly with one herd. 

Jesu, for thy blissful blood, 

Bring, if thou wilt, those souls to bliss 
From whom I have had any good, 

And spare that they have done amiss. 

This old-fashioned hymn lady Margaret had learned 
from her grandmother, who was an Englishwoman of the 
pale. She also had learned it from her grandmother. 

One day, by some accident, Dorothy had not reached 
her post of naiad before Molly arrived in presence of 
her idol, the white horse, her usual application to which 
was thence for the moment in vain. Having waited 
about three seconds in perfect patience, she turned her 
head slowly round, and gazed in her nurse’s countenance 
with large questioning eyes, but said nothing. Then 
she turned again to the horse. Presently a smile broke 
over her face, and she cried, in the tone of one who had 
made a great discovery : 

“Horse has ears of stone : he cannot hear Molly.” 

Instantly thereupon she turned her face up to the sky, 
and said, 

“ Dear holy Mary, tell horse to spout.” 


MOLLY AND THE WHITE HORSE. 


209 


That moment up into the sun shot the two jets. 
Molly clapped her little hands with delight and cried, 

“ Thanks, dear holy Mary ! I knowed thou would do 
it for Molly. Thanks, madam !” 

The nurse told the story to her mistress, and she to 
Dorothy. It set both of them feeling, and Dorothy 
thinking besides. * 

“ It cannot be,” she thought, “but that a child’s prayer 
will reach its goal, even should she turn her face to the 
west or the north instead of up to the heavens! A 
prayer somewhat differs from a bolt or a bullet.” 

“ How you protestants can live without a woman to 
pray to!” said lady Margaret. 

“ Her son Jesus never refused to hear a woman, and I 
see not -wherefore I should go to his mother, madam,” 
said Dorothy bravely. 

“ Thou and I will not quarrel, Dorothy,” returned 
lady Margaret sweetly ; “ for sure am I that would please 
neither the one nor the other of them.” 

Dorothy kissed her hand, and the subject dropped. 

After that Molly never asked the horse to spout, or if 
she happened to do so, would correct herself instantly, 
and turn her request to the mother Mary. Nor did the 
horse ever fail to spout, notwithstanding an evil thought 
which arose in the protestant part of Dorothy’s mind — 
the temptation, namely, to try the effect upon Molly of a 
second failure. All the rest of her being on the instant 
turned so violently protestant against the suggestion, 
that no parley with it was possible, and the conscience 
of her intellect cowered before the conscience of her 
heart. 

It was from this fancy of the child’s for the spouting 
of the horse that it came to be known in the castle that 
mistress Dorothy was ruler of Raglan waters. In lord 
Herbert’s absence not a person in the place but she and 


210 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


Caspar understood their management, and except lady 
Margaret, the marquis, and lord Charles, no one besides 
even knew of the existence of such a contrivance as the 
water-shoot or artificial cataract. 

Every night Dorothy and Caspar together set the 
springs of it, and every morning Caspar detached the 
lever connecting the stone with the drawbridge. 


CHAPTER XXI. 


THE DAMSEL WHICH FELL SICK. 

ROM within the great fortress, like the rough husk 



X whence the green lobe of a living tree was about to 
break forth, a lovely child-soul, that knew neither of 
war, nor ambition, knew indeed almost nothing save 
love and pain, was gently rising as from the tomb. The 
bonds of the earthly life that had for ever conferred 
upon it the rights and privileges of humanity were giving 
way, and little white-faced* big-eyed Molly was leaving 
father and mother and grandfather and spouting horse 
and all to find — what? — To find what she wanted, and 
wait a little for what she loved. 

One sultry evening in the second week of June, the 
weather had again got inside the inhabitants of the 
castle, forming different combinations according to the 
local atmosphere it found in each. Clouds had been 
slowly steaming up all day from several sides of the 
horizon, and as the sun went down, they met in the 
zenith. Not a wing seemed to be abroad under heaven, 
so still was the region of storms. The air was hot and 
heavy and hard to breathe — whether from lack of life, 
or too much of it, oppressing the narrow and weak 
recipients thereof, as the sun oppresses and extinguishes 
earthly fires, I at least cannot say. It was weather that 
made some dogs bite their masters, made most of the 
maids quarrelsome, and all the men but one or two 
more or less sullen, made Dorothy sad, Molly long after 
she knew not what, her mother weep, her grandfather 
feel himself growing old, and the hearts of all the lovers, 


212 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


within and without the castle, throb for the comfort of 
each other’s lonely society. The fish lay still in the 
ponds, the pigeons sat motionless on the roof-ridges, and 
the fountains did not play ; for Dorothy’s heart was so 
heavy about Molly, that she had forgotten them. 

The marquis, fond of all his grandchildren, had never 
taken special notice of Molly beyond what she naturally 
claimed as youngest. But when it appeared that she 
was one of the spring-flowers of the human family, so 
soon withdrawing thither whence they come, he found 
that she began to pull at his heart, not merely with the 
attraction betwixt childhood and age, in which there is 
more than the poets have yet sung, but with the dearness 
which the growing shadow of death gives to all upon 
whom it gathers. The eyes of the child seemed to 
nestle into his bosom. Every morning he paid her a 
visit, and every morning it was clear that little Molly’s 
big heart had been waiting for him. The young as well 
as the old recognize that they belong to each other, 
despite the unwelcome intervention of wrinkles and 
baldness and toothlessness. Molly’s eyes brightened 
when she heard his steps at the door, and ere he had 
come within her sight, where she lay half dressed on her 
mother’s bed tented in its tall carved posts and curtains 
of embroidered silk, the figures on which gave her so 
much trouble all the half-delirious night long, her arms 
would be stretched out to him, and the words would be 
trembling on her lips, “Prithee, tell me a tale, sir.” 

“Which tale wouldst thou have, my Molly?” the 
grandsire would say: it was the regular form of each 
day’s fresh salutation; and the little one would answer, 
“Of the good Jesu,” generally adding, “and of the dam- 
sel which fell sick and died.” 

Torn as the country was, all the good grandparents, 
catholic and protestant, royalist and puritan, told their 


THE DAMSEL WHICH FELL SICK. 213 

children the same tales about the same man, and I 
suspect there was more then than there is now of that 
kind of oral teaching, for which any amount of books 
written for children is a sadly poor substitute. 

Although Molly asked oftenest for the tale of the 
damsel who came alive again at the word of the man 
who knew all about death, she did not limit her desires 
to the repetition of what she knew already, and in order 
to keep his treasure supplied with things new as well as 
old, the marquis went the oftener to his Latin bible to 
refresh his memory for Molly’s use, and was in both 
ways, in receiving and in giving, a gainer. When the 
old man came thus to pour out his wealth to the child, 
lady Margaret then first became aware what a depth 
both of religious knowledge and feeling there was in her 
father-in-law. Neither sir Toby Mathews, nor Dr. Bayly 
who also visited her at times, ever, with the torch of 
their talk, lighted the lamps behind those great eyes, 
whose glass was growing dull with the vapors from the 
grave ; but her grandfather’s voice, the moment he began 
to speak to her of the good Jesu, brought her soul to its 
windows. 

This sultry evening Molly was restless. “Madam! 
madam!” she kept calling to her mother— for, like so 
many of such children, her manners and modes of speech 
resembled those of grown people. “What would ’st thou, 
chicken?” her mother would ask. “Madam, I know 
not,” the child would answer. Twenty times in an hour 
as the evening went on, almost the same words would 
pass between them. At length, once more, “Madam! 
madam !” cried the child. “ What would my heart’s treas- 
ure?” said the mother; and Molly answered, “ Madam, 
I would see the white horse spout.” 

With a glance and sign to her mistress, Dorothy rose 
and crept from the room, crossed the court and the 


214 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


moat, and dragged her heavy heart up the long stair to 
the top of the keep. Arrived there, she looked down 
through a battlement, and fixed her eyes on a certain 
window, whence presently she caught the wave of a 
signal-handkerchief. 

At the open window stood lady Margaret with Molly 
in her arms. The night was so warm that the child 
could take no hurt, and indeed what could hurt her, 
with the nameless fever-moth within, fretting a passage 
for the new, winged body which, in the pains of a second 
birth, struggled to break from its dying chrysalis. 

“Now, Molly, tell the horse to spout,” said lady Mar- 
garet, with such well-simulated cheerfulness as only 
mothers can put on with hearts ready to break. 

“ Mother Mary, tell the horse to spout,” said Molly ; 
and up went the watery parabolas. 

The old flame of delight flushed the child’s cheek like 
the flush in the heart of a white rose. But it died 
almost instantly, and murmuring, “ Thanks, good mad- 
am!” whether to mother Mary or mother Margaret little 
mattered, Molly turned towards the bed, and her mother 
knew at her heart that the child sought her last sleep, as 
we call it, God forgive us our little faith I “Madam!” 
panted the child, as she laid her down. “Darling?” 
said the mother. “ Madam, I would see my lord mar- 
quis.” — “I will send and ask him to come.” — “Let 
Robert say that Molly is going — going — where is Molly 
going, madam?” — “Going to mother Mary, child,” an- 
swered lady Margaret, choking back the sobs that would 
have kept the tears company. “And the good Jesu?” — 
“Yes.” — “And the good God over all?” — “Yes, yes.” — 
“ I want to tell my lord marquis. Pray, madam, let him 
come, and quickly.” 

His lordship entered, pale and panting. He knew 
the end was approaching. Molly stretched out to him 


THE DAMSEL WHICH FELL SICK. 


215 


one hand instead of two, as if her hold upon earth were 
half yielded. He sat down by the bedside and wiped 
his forehead with a sigh. 

“Thee tired too, marquis?” asked the odd little love- 
bird. 

“Yes, I am tired, my Molly. Thou seest I am so 
fat.” 

“ Shall I ask the good mother, when I go to her, to 
make thee spare like Molly?” 

“ No, Molly, thou need’st not trouble her about that. 
Ask her to make me good.” 

“Would it then be easier to make thee good than to 
make thee spare, marquis?” 

“ No, child — much harder, alas!” 

“Then why ?” began Molly; but the marquis 

perceiving her thought, made haste to prevent it, for her 
breath was coming quick and weak. 

“But it is so much better worth doing, you see. If 
she makes me good, she will have another in heaven to 
be good to.” 

“ Then I know she will. But I will ask her. Mother 
Mary has so many to mind, she might be forgetting.” 

After this she lay very quiet with her hand in his. 
All the windows of the room were open, and from the 
chapel came the mellow sounds of the organ. Delaware 
had captured Tom Fool and got him to blow the bel- 
lows, and through the heavy air the music surged in. 
Molly was dozing a little, and she spoke as one that 
speaks in a dream. 

“ The white horse is spouting music,” she said. “Look ! 
See how it goes up to mother Mary. She twists it round 
her distaff and spins it with her spindle. See, marquis, 
see ! Spout, horse, spout.” 

She lay silent again for a long time. The old man sat 
holding her hand ; her mother sat on the farther side of 


216 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


the bed, leaning against one of the footposts, and watch- 
ing the white face of her darling with eyes in which love 
ruled distraction. Dorothy sat in one of the window- 
seats, and listened to the music, which still came surging 
in, for still the fool blew the bellows, and the blind 
youth struck the keys. And still the clouds gathered 
overhead and sunk towards the earth; and still the 
horse, which Dorothy had left spouting, threw up his 
twin-fountain, whose musical plash in the basin as it fell 
mingled with the sounds of the organ. 

“What is it?” said Molly, waking up. “My head 
doth not ache, and my heart doth not beat, and I am 
not affrighted. What is it ? I am not tired. Marquis, 
are you no longer tired ? Ah, now I know ! He cometh ! 
He is here ! — Marquis, the good Jesus wants Molly’s 
hand. Let him have it, marquis. He is lifting me up. 
I am quite well — quite ” 

The sentence remained broken. The hand which the 
marquis had yielded, with the awe of one in bodily 
presence of the Holy, and which he saw raised as if in 
the grasp of one invisible, fell back on the bed, and little 
Molly was quite well. 

But she left sick hearts behind. The mother threw 
herself on the bed, and wailed aloud. The marquis 
burst into tears, left the room, and sought his study. 
Mechanically he took his Confessio Amantis , and sat 
down, but never opened it ; rose again and took his 
Shakspere, opened it, but could not read; rose once 
more, took his Vulgate, and read: 

“ Quid turbamini, et ploratis ? puella non est mortua, 
sed dormit.” 

He laid that book also down, fell on his knees, and 
prayed for her who was not dead but sleeping. 

Dorothy, filled with awe, rather from the presence of 
the mother of the dead than death itself, and feeling 


THE DAMSEL WHICH FELL SICK. 217 

that the mother would rather be alone with her dead, 
also left the room, and sought her chamber, where she 
threw herself upon the bed. All was still save the plash- 
ing of the fountain, for the music from the chapel had 
ceased. 

The storm burst in a glare and a peal. The rain fell 
in straight lines and huge drops, which came faster and 
faster, drowning the noise of the fountain, till the sound 
of it on the many roofs of the place was like the tramp- 
ling of an army of horsemen, and every spout was 
gurgling musically with full throat. The one court was 
filled with a clashing upon its pavement, and the other 
with a soft singing upon its. grass, with which mingled a 
sound as of little castanets from the broad leaves of the 
water-lilies in the moat. Ever and anon came the light- 
ning, and the great bass of the thunder to fill up the 
psalm. 

At the first thunderclap lady Margaret fell on her 
knees and prayed in an agony for the little soul that had 
gone forth into the midst of the storm. Like many 
women she had a horror of lightning and thunder, and it 
never came into her mind that she who had so loved to 
see the horse spout was far more likely to be reveling in 
the elemental tumult, with all the added ecstasy of new- 
born freedom and health, than to be trembling like her 
mortal mother below. 

Dorothy was not afraid, but she was heavy and weary ; 
the thunder seemed to stun her, and the lightning to 
take the power of motion from the shut eyelids through 
which it shone. She lay without moving, and at length 
fell fast asleep. 

To the marquis alone of the mourners the storm came 
as a relief to his overcharged spirit. He had again 
opened his New Testament, and tried to read, but if the 
truths which alone can comfort axe not at such a time 
K 


218 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


present to the spirit, the words that embody them will 
seldom be of much avail. When the thunder burst he 
closed the book and went to the window, flung it wide, 
and looked out into the court. Like a tide from the 
plains of innocent heaven through the sultry passionate 
air of the world, came the coolness to his brow and 
heart. Oxygen, ozone, nitrogen, water, carbonic acid, is 
it ? Doubtless — and other things, perhaps, which chem- 
istry cannot detect. Nevertheless, give its parts what 
names you will, its whole is yet the wind of the living 
God to the bodies of men, his spirit to their spirits, his 
breath to their hearts. When I learn that there is no 
primal intent — only chance — in the unspeakable joy that 
it gives, I shall cease to believe in poetry, in music, in 
woman, in God. Nay, I must have already ceased to 
believe in God ere I could believe that the wind that 
bloweth where it listeth is free because God hath forgot- 
ten it, and that it bears from him no message to me. 


CHAPTER XXII. 


THE CATARACT. 

I N the midst of a great psalm, on the geyser column of 
which his spirit was borne heavenward, young Dela- 
ware all of a sudden found the keys dumb beneath his 
helpless fingers : the bellows was empty, the singing 
thing dead. He called aloud, and his voice echoed 
through the empty chapel, but no living response came 
back. Tom Fool had grown weary and forsaken him. 
Disappointed and baffled, he rose and left the chapel, 
not immediately from the organ loft, by a door and a 
few upward steps through the wall to the minstrels’ 
gallery, as he had entered, but by the south door into 
the court, his readiest way to reach the rooms he occu- 
pied with his father, near the marquis’s study. Hardly 
another door in either court was ever made fast except 
this one. which, merely in self-administered flattery of 
his own consequence, the conceited sacristan who as- 
sumed charge of the key, always locked at night. But 
there was no reason why Delaware should pay any 
respect to this, or hesitate to remove the bar securing 
one half of the door, without which the lock retained no 
hold. 

Although Tom had indeed deserted his post, the 
organist was mistaken as to the cause and mode of his 
desertion : oppressed like every one else with the sultri- 
ness of the night, he had fallen fast asleep, leaning 
against the organ. The thunder only waked him suffi- 
ciently to render him capable of slipping from the stool 
on which he had lazily seated himself as he worked the 


220 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


lever of the bellows, and stretching himself at full length 
upon the floor; while the coolness that by degrees filled 
the air as the rain kept pouring, made his sleep sweeter 
and deeper. He lay and snored till midnight. 

A bell rang in the marquis’s chamber. 

It was one of his lordship’s smaller economic maxims 
that in every house, and the larger the house the more 
necessary its observance, the master thereof should have 
his private rooms as far apart from each other as might, 
with due respect to general fitnesses, be arranged for, in 
order that, to use his own figure, he might spread his 
skirts the wider over the place, and chiefly the part 
occupied by his own family and immediate attendants — 
thereby to give himself, without paying more attention 
to such matters than he could afford, a better chance of 
coming upon the trace of anything that happened to be 
going amiss. “For,” he said, “let a man have ever so 
many responsible persons about him, the final responsi- 
bility of his affairs yet returns upon himself.” Hence, 
while his bed-room was close to the main entrance, that 
is the gate to the stone court, the room he chose for 
retirement and study was over the western gate, that of 
the fountain-court, nearly a whole side of the double 
quadrangle away from his bed-room, and still farther 
from the library, which lay on the other side of the main 
entrance — whence, notwithstanding, he would himself, 
gout permitting, always fetch any book he wanted. It 
was, therefore, no wonder that, being now in his study, 
the marquis, although it rang loud, never heard the bell 
Caspar had hung in his bedchamber. He was, however, 
at the moment, looking from a window which com- 
manded the very spot — namely, the mouth of the arch- 
way — towards which the bell would have drawn his 
attention. 

The night was still, the rain was over, and, although 


THE CATARACT. 


221 


the moon was clouded, there was light enough to recog- 
nize a known figure in any part of the court, except the 
shadowed recess where the door of the chapel and the 
archway faced each other, and the door of the hall stood 
at right angles to both. 

Came a great clang that echoed loud through the 
court, followed by the roar of water. It sounded as if a 
captive river had broken loose, and grown suddenly 
frantic with freedom. The marquis could not help 
starting violently, for his nerves were a good deal shaken. 
The same instant, ere there was time for a single con- 
jecture, a torrent, visible by the light of its foam, shot 
from the archway, hurled itself against the chapel door, 
and vanished. Sad and startled as he was, lord Worces- 
ter, requiring no explanation of the phenomenon now 
that it was completed, laughed aloud and hurried from 
the room. 

When he had screwed his unwieldy form to the bottom 
of the stair, and came out into the court, there was Tom 
Fool flying across the turf in mortal terror, his face 
white as another moon, and his hair standing on end — 
visibly in the dull moonshine. 

His terror had either deafened him, or paralyzed the 
nerves of his obedience, for the first call of his master 
was insufficient to stop him. At the second, however, 
he halted, turned mechanically, went to him trembling, 
and stood before him speechless. But when the mar- 
quis, to satisfy himself that he was really as dry as he 
seemed, laid his hand on his arm, the touch brought him 
to himself, and, assisted by his master’s questions, he 
was able to tell how he had fallen asleep in the chapel, 
had waked but a minute ago, had left it by the minstrels’ 
gallery, had reached the floor of the hall, and was ap- 
proaching the western door, which stood open, in order 
to cross the court to his lodging near the watch-tower, 


222 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


when a hellish explosion, followed by the most frightful 
roaring, mingled with shrieks and demoniacal laughter, 
arrested him, and the same instant, through the open 
door, he saw, as plainly as he now saw his noble master, 
a torrent rush from the archway, full of dim figures, 
wallowing and shouting. The same moment they all 
vanished, and the flood poured into the hall, wetting him 
to the knees, and almost carrying him off his legs. 

Here the marquis professed profound astonishment, 
remarking that the water must indeed have been thick- 
ened with devils to be able to lay hold of Tom’s legs. 

“Then,” pursued Tom, reviving a little, “I summoned 
up all my courage ” 

“ No great feat,” said the marquis. 

But Tom went on unabashed. 

“I summoned up the whole of my courage,” he re- 
peated, “ stepped out of the hall, carefully examined the 
ground, looked through the archway, saw nothing, and 
was walking slowly across the court to my lodging, 
pondering with myself whether to call my lord governor 

or sir Toby Mathews, when I heard your lordship call 
11 

me. 

“Tom! Tom! thou liest,” said the marquis. “Thou 
wast running as if all the devils in hell had been at thy 
heels.” 

Tom turned deadly pale, a fresh access of terror over- 
coming his new-born hardihood. 

“Who were they, thinkest thou, whom thou sawest in 
the water, Tom?” resumed his master. “For what didst 
thou take them ?” 

Tom shook his head with an awful significance, looked 
behind him, and said nothing. 

Perceiving there was no more to be got out of him, 
the marquis sent him to bed. He went off shivering and 
shaking. Three times ere he reached the watch-tower 


THE CATARACT. 


223 


his face gleamed white over his shoulder as he went. 
The next day he did not appear. He thought himself 
he was doomed, but his illness was only the prostration 
following upon terror. 

In the version of the story which he gave his fellow 
servants, he doubtless mingled the after visions of his 
bed with what he had when half-awake seen and heard 
through the mists of his startled imagination. His tale 
was this — that he saw the moat swell and rise, boil over 
in a mass, and tumble into the court as full of devils as 
it could hold, swimming in it, floating on it, riding it 
aloft as if it had been a horse; that in a moment they 
had all vanished again, and that he had not a doubt the 
castle was now swarming with them — in fact he had 
heard them all the night long. 

The marquis walked up to the archway, saw nothing 
save the grim wall of the keep, impassive as granite crag, 
and the ground wet a long way towards the white horse ; 
and never doubting he had lost his chance by taking 
Tom for the culprit, contented himself with the reflection 
that, whoever the night-walkers were, they had received 
both a fright and a ducking, and betook himself to bed, 
where, falling asleep at length, he saw little Molly in the 
arms of mother Mary, who, presently changing to his 
own lady Anne that left him about a year before little 
Molly came, held out a hand to him to help him up 
beside them, whereupon the bubble sleep, unable to hold 
the swelling of his gladness, burst, and he woke just as 
the first rays of the sun smote the gilded cock on the 
bell-tower. 

The noise of the falling drawbridge and the out-rushing 
water had roused Dorothy also, with most of the lighter 
sleepers in the castle; but when she and all the rest 
whose windows were to the fountain court, ran to them 
and looked out, they saw nothing but the flight of Tom 


224 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


Fool across the turf, its arrest by his master, and their 
following conference. The moon had broken through 
the clouds, and there was no mistaking either of their 
persons. 

Meantime, inside the chapel door stood Amanda and 
Rowland, both dripping, and one of them crying as well. 
Thither, as into a safe harbor, the sudden flood had cast 
them ; and it indicated no small amount of ready faculty 
in Scudamore that, half-stunned as he was, he yet had 
the sense, almost ere he knew where he was, to put up 
the long bar that secured the door. 

All the time that the marquis was drawing his story 
from Tom, they stood trembling, in great bewilderment 
yet very sensible misery, bruised, drenched, and horribly 
frightened, more even at what might be than by what 
had been. There was only one question, but that was 
hard to answer : what were they to do next ? Amanda 
could contribute nothing towards its solution, for tears 
and reproaches resolve no enigmas. There were many 
ways of issue, whereof Rowland knew several ; but their 
watery trail, if soon enough followed, would be their ruin 
as certainly as Hop-o’-my-Thumb’s pebbles were safety 
to himself and his brothers. He stood therefore the 
very bond slave of perplexity, “ and, like a neutral to his 
will and matter, did nothing.” 

Presently they heard the approaching step of the mar- 
quis, which every one in the castle knew. It stopped 
within a few feet of them, and through the thick door 
they could hear his short asthmatic breathing. 

They kept as still as their trembling, and the mad 
beating of their hearts, would permit. Amanda was 
nearly out of her senses, and thought her heart was 
beating against the door and not against her own ribs. 
But the marquis never thought of the chapel, having at 
once concluded that they had fled through the open 


THE CATARACT. 


225 


hall. Had he not, however, been so weary and sad and 
listless, he would probably have found them, for he 
would at least have crossed the hall to look into the 
next court, and, the moon now shining brightly, the 
absence of all track on the floor where the traces of the 
brief inundation ceased, would have surely indicated the 
direction in which they had sought refuge. 

The acme of terror happily endured but a moment. 
The sound of his departing footsteps took the ghoul 
from their hearts; they began to breathe and to hope 
that the danger was gone. But they waited long ere at 
last they ventured, like wild animals overtaken by the 
daylight, to creep out of their shelter and steal back like 
shadows — but separately, Amanda first, and Scudamore 
some slow minutes after — to their different quarters. 
The tracks they could not help leaving indoors, were 
dried up before the morning. 

Rowland had greater reason to fear discovery, than 
any one else in the castle, save one, would in like cir- 
cumstances have had, and that one was his bedfellow in 
the antechamber to his master’s bed-room. Through 
this room his lordship had to pass to reach his own ; but 
so far was he from suspecting Rowland, or indeed any 
gentleman of his retinue, that he never glanced in the 
direction of his bed, and so could not discover that he 
was absent from it. Had Rowland but caught a glimpse 
of his own figure as he sneaked into that room, five 
minutes after the marquis had passed through it, believ- 
ing his master was still in his study, where he had left 
his candles burning, he could hardly for some time have 
had his usual success in regarding himself as a fine 
gentleman. 

Amanda Serafina did not show herself for several 
days. A bad cold in her head luckily afforded sufficient 
pretext for the concealment of a bad bruise upon her 


220 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


cheek. Other bruises she had also, but they, although 
more severe, were of less consequence. 

For a whole fortnight the lovers never dared exchange 
a word. 

In the morning the marquis was in no mood to set any 
inquiry on foot. His little lamb had vanished from his 
fold, and he was sad and lonely. Had it been otherwise, 
possibly the shabby doublet in which Scudamore stood 
behind his chair the next morning, might have set him 
thinking; but as it was, it fell in so well with the gloom 
in which his own spirit shrouded everything, that he 
never even marked the change, and ere long Rowland 
began to feel himself safe. 


CHAPTER XXI 1 7. 


AMANDA DOROTHY LORD HERBERT. 

S O also did Amanda ; but not the less did she cherish 
feelings of revenge against her whom she more than 
suspected of having been the contriver of her harmful 
discomfiture. She felt certain that Dorothy had laid 
the snare into which they* had fallen, with the hope if 
not the certainty of catching just themselves two in it, 
and she read in her therefore jealousy and cruelty as 
well as coldness and treachery. Rowland on the other 
hand was inclined to attribute the mishap to the dis- 
pleasure of lord Herbert, whose supernatural acquire- 
ments, he thought, had enabled him both to discover and 
punish their intrusion. Amanda, nevertheless, kept her 
own opinion, and made herself henceforth all eyes and 
ears for Dorothy, hoping ever to find a chance of retali- 
ating, if not in kind, yet in plentiful measure of ven- 
geance. Dorothy’s odd ways, lawless movements, and 
what the rest of the ladies counted her vulgar tastes, had 
for some time been the subject of remark to the gossiping 
portion of the castle community, and it seemed to 
Amanda that in watching and discovering what she was 
about when she supposed herself safe from the eyes of 
her equals and superiors, lay her best chance of finding 
a mode of requital. Nor was she satisfied with observa- 
tion, but kept her mind busy on the trail, now of one, 
now of another vague-bodied revenge. 

The charge of low tastes was founded upon the fact 


228 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


that there was not an artisan about the castle, from 
Caspar downwards, whom Dorothy did not know and 
address by his name; but her detractors, in drawing 
their conclusions from it, never thought of finding any 
related significance in another fact, namely, that there 
was not a single animal either, of consequence enough 
to have a name, which she did not know by it. There 
were very few of the animals indeed which did not know 
her in return, if not by her name, yet by her voice or 
her presence — some of them even by her foot or her 
hand. She would wander about the farmyard and stables 
for an hour at a time, visiting all that were there, and 
specially her little horse, which she had long, oh, so long 
ago ! named Dick, nor had taken his name from him any 
more than from Marquis. 

The charge of lawlessness in her movements was 
founded on another fact, as well, namely, that she was 
often seen in the court after dusk, and that not merely 
in running across to the keep, as she would be doing at 
all hours, but loitering about, in full view of the windows. 
It was not denied that this took place only when the 
organ was playing— but then who played the organ? 
Was not the poor afflicted boy, barring the blank of his 
eyes, beautiful as an angel? And was not mistress 
Dorothy too deep to be fathomed? And so the tattling 
streams flowed on, and the ears of mistress Amanda 
willingly listened to their music, nor did she disdain 
herself to contribute to the reservoir in which those of 
the castle whose souls thirsted after the minutiae of live 
biography, accumulated their stores of fact and fiction, 
conjecture and falsehood. 

Lord Herbert came home to bury his little one, and 
all that was left behind of her was borne to the church 
of St. Cadocus, the parish church of Raglan, and there 
laid beside the marquis’s father and mother. He re- 


AMANDA— DOROTHY— LORD HERBERT. 229 

mained with them a fortnight, and his presence was 
much needed to lighten the heavy gloom that had settled 
over both his wife and his father. 

As if it were not enough to bury the bodies of the 
departed, there are many, and the marquis and his 
daughter-in-law were of the number, who in a sense 
seek to bury their souls as well, making a graveyard of 
their own spirits, and laying the stone of silence over the 
memory of the dead. Such never speak of them but 
when compelled, and then almost as if to utter their 
names were an act of impiety. Not In Memoriatn but 
In Oblivionem should be the inscription upon the tombs 
they raise. The memory that forsakes the sunlight, like 
the fishes in the underground river, loses its eyes; the 
cloud of its grief carries no rainbow ; behind the veil of 
its twin-future burns no lamp fringing its edges with the 
light of hope. I can better, however, understand the 
hopelessness of the hopeless than their calmness along 
with it. Surely they must be upheld by the presence 
within them of that very immortality, against whose 
aurora they shut to their doors, then mourn as if there 
were no such thing. 

Radiant as she was by nature, lady Margaret, when 
sorrow came, could do little towards her own support. 
The marquis said to himself, “I am growing old, and 
cannot smile at grief so well as once on a day. Sorrow 
is a hawk more fell than I had thought.” The name of 
little Molly was never mentioned between them. But 
sudden floods of tears were the signs of the mother’s 
remembrance; and the outbreak of ambushed sighs, 
which he would make haste to attribute to the gout, the 
signs of the grandfather’s. 

Dorothy, too, belonged in tendency to the class of the 
unspeaking. Her nature was not a bright one. Her 
spirit’s day was evenly, softly lucent, like one of those 


230 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL, 


clouded calm gray mornings of summer, which seem 
more likely to end in rain than sunshine. 

Lord Herbert was of a very different temperament. 
He had hope enough in his one single nature to serve 
the whole castle, if only it could have been shared. The 
veil between him and the future glowed as if on fire with 
mere radiance, and about to vanish in flame. It was 
not that he more than one of the rest imagined he could 
see through it. For him it was enough that beyond it 
lay the luminous. His eyes, to those that looked on 
him, were lighted with its reflex. 

Such as he, are, by those who love them not, mis- 
judged as shallow. Depth to some is indicated by 
gloom, and affection by a persistent brooding — as if 
there were no homage to the past of love save sighs and 
tears. When they meet a man whose eyes shine, whose 
step is light, on whose lips hovers a smile, they shake 
their heads and say, “ There goes one who has never 
loved, and who therefore knows not sorrow/’ And the 
man is one of those over whom death has no power; 
whom time nor space can part from those he loves ; who 
lives in the future more than in the past ! Has not his 
being ever been for the sake of that which was yet to 
come? Is not his being now for the sake of that 
which it shall be? Has he not infinitely more to do 
with the great future than the little past? The Past has 
descended into hell, is even now ascending glorified, and 
will, in returning cycle, ever and again greet our faith as 
the more and yet more radiant Future. 

But even lord Herbert had his moments of sad longing 
after his dainty Molly. Such moments, however, came 
to him, not when he was at home with his wife, but 
when he rode alone by his troops on a night march, or 
when, upon the eve of an expected battle, he sought 
sleep that he might fight the better on the morrow. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 


THE GREAT MOGUL 



,NE evening, Tom Fool and a groom, his particular 


friend, were taking their pastime after a somewhat 
selfish fashion, by no means newly discovered in the 
castle — that of teasing the wild beasts. There was one 
in particular, a panther, which, in a special dislike for 
grimaces, had discovered a special capacity for being 
teased. Betwixt two of the bars of his cage therefore, 
Tom was busy presenting him with one hideous puritan- 
ical face after another, in full expectation of a satisfactory 
outburst of feline rancor. But to their disappointment, 
the panther on this occasion seemed to have resolved 
upon a dignified resistance to temptation, and had with- 
drawn in sultry displeasure to the back of his cage, 
where he lay sideways, deigning to turn neither his back 
nor his face towards the inferior animal, at whom to 
cast but one glance, he knew, would be to ruin his grand 
oriental sulks, and fly at the hideous ape-visage insulting 
him in his prison. It was tiresome of the brute. Tom 
Fool grew more daring and threw little stones at him, 
but the panther seemed only to grow the more imper- 
turbable, and to heed his missiles as little as his grimaces. 

At length, proceeding from bad to worse, as is always 
the way with fools, born or made, Tom betook himself 
to stronger measures. 

The cages of the wild beasts were in the basement of 
the kitchen tower, with a little semicircular yard of their 
own before them. They were solid stone vaults, with 


232 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


open fronts grated with huge iron bars : — our ancestors, 
whatever were their faults, did not err in the direction 
of flimsiness. Between two of these bars, then, Tom, 
having procured a long pole, proceeded to poke at the 
beast; but he soon found that the pole thickened too 
rapidly towards the end he held, to pass through the 
bars far enough to reach him. Thereupon, in utter fool- 
hardiness, backed by the groom, he undid the door a 
little way, and, his companion undertaking to prevent it 
from opening too far, pushed in the pole till it went right 
in the creature’s face. One hideous yell — and neither 
of them knew what was occurring till they saw the tail 
of the panther disappearing over the six-foot wall that 
separated the cages from the stable yard. Tom fled at 
once for the stair leading up to the stone-court, while 
the groom, whose training had given him a better cour- 
age, now supplemented by the horror of possible conse- 
quences, ran to warn the stablemen and get help to 
recapture the animal. 

The uproarious tumult of maddest barking which 
immediately arose from the chained dogs, entered the 
ears of all in the castle, at least of every one possessed 
of dog-sympathies, and penetrated even those of the 
rather deaf host of the White Horse in Raglan village. 
Dorothy, sitting in her room, of course, heard it, and 
hearing it, equally of course, hurried to see what was the 
matter. The marquis heard it where he sat in his study, 
but was in no such young haste as Dorothy : it was only 
after a little, when he found the noise increase, and 
certain other sounds mingle with it, that he rose in some 
anxiety and went to discover the cause. 

Halfway across the stone court, Dorothy met Tom 
running, and the moment she saw his face, knew that 
something serious had happened. 

“Get in doors, mistress,” he said, almost rudely; “the 


THE GREAT MOGUL. 


m 


devil is to pay down in the yard,” and ran on. “Shut 
your door, master cook,” she heard him cry as he ran. 
“The Great Mogul is out.” 

And as she ran too, she heard the door of the kitchen 
close with a great bang. 

But Dorothy was not running after the fool, or making 
for any door but that at the bottom of the library tower; 
for the first terror that crossed her mind was the possible 
fate of Dick, and the first comfort that followed, the 
thought of Marquis ; so she was running straight for the 
stable-yard, where the dogs, to judge by the way they 
tore their throats with barking, seemed frantic with rage. 

No doubt the panther when he cleared the wall, hoped 
exultant to find himself in the savage forest, instead of 
which he came down on the top of a pump, fell on the 
stones, and the same instant was caught in a hurricane 
of canine hate. A little hurt and a good deal frightened, 
for he had not endured such long captivity without 
debasement, he glared around him with sneaking inquiry. 
But the walls were lofty and he saw no gate, and feeling 
unequal at the moment to the necessary spring, he crept 
almost like a snake under what covert seemed readiest, 
and disappeared — just as the groom entering by a door 
in one of the walls began to look about for him in a 
style wherein caution predominated. Seeing no trace of 
him, and concluding that, as he had expected, the clamor 
of the dogs had driven him further, he went on, crossing 
the yard to find the men, whose voices he heard on the 
green at the back of the rick-yard, when suddenly he 
found that his arm was both broken and torn. The 
sight of the blood completed the mischief, and he fell 
down in a Swoon. 

Meantime Dorothy had reached the same door in the 
wall of the stable-yard, and peeping in saw nothing but 
the dogs raging and rugging at their chains as if they 


234 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


would drag the earth itself after them to reach the 
enemy. She was one of those on whose wits, usually 
sedate in their motions, all sorts of excitement, danger 
amongst the rest, operate favorably. When she specially 
noticed the fury of Marquis, the same moment she per- 
ceived the danger in which he, that was, all the dogs, 
would be, if the panther should attack them one by one 
on the chain : not one of them had a chance. With the 
thought, she sped across the space between her and 
Marquis, who — I really cannot say which concerning 
such a dog — was fortunately not very far from the door. 
Feeling him a little safer now that she stood by his side, 
she resumed her ocular search for the panther, or any 
further sign of his proximity, but with one hand on the 
dog’s collar, ready in an instant to seize it with both, 
and unclasp it. 

Nor had she to look long, for all the dogs were strain- 
ing their chains in one direction, and all their lines 
converged upon a little dark shed, where stood a cart : 
under the cart, between its lowered shafts, she caught a 
doubtful luminousness, as if the dark while yet dark had 
begun to throb with coming light. This presently 
seemed to resolve itself, and she saw, vaguely but with 
conviction, two huge lamping cat-eyes. I will not say 
she felt no fear, but she was not terrified, for she had 
great confidence in Marquis. One moment she stood 
bethinking herself, and one glance she threw at the spot 
where her mastiff’s chain was attached to his collar : she 
would fain have had him keep the latter to defend his 
neck and throat; but alas! it was as she knew well 
enough before — the one was riveted to the other, and 
the two must go together. 

And now first, as she raised her head from the momen- 
tary inspection, she saw the groom lying on the ground 
within a few yards of the shed. Her first thought was 


THE GREAT MOGUL. 


235 


that the panther had killed him, but ere a second had 
time to rise in her mind, she saw the terrible animal 
creeping out from under the cart, with his chin on the 
ground, like the great cat he was, and making for the 
man. 

The brute had got the better of his fall, and finding he 
was not pursued, the barking of the dogs, to which in 
moderation he was sufficiently accustomed, had ceased 
to confuse him, he had recovered his awful self, and was 
now scenting prey. Had the man made a single move- 
ment he would have been upon him like lightning ; but 
the few moments he took in creeping towards him, gave 
Dorothy all the time she needed. With resolute, though 
trembling hands, she undid Marquis’s collar. 

The instant he was free, the fine animal went at the 
panther straight and fast like a bolt from a cross-bow. 
But Dorothy loved him too well to lose a moment in 
sending even a glance after him. Leaving him to his 
work, she flew to hers, which lay at the next kennel, that 
of an Irish wolf-hound, whose curling lip showed his 
long teeth to the very root and whose fury had redoubled 
at the sight of his rival shooting past him free for the 
fight. So wildly did he strain upon his collar, that she 
found it took all her strength to unclasp it. In a much 
shorter time, however, than she fancied, O’Brien too was 
on the panther, and the sounds of cano-feline battle 
seemed to fill every cranny of her brain. 

But now she heard the welcome cries of men and 
clatter of weapons. Some, alarmed by Tom Fool, came 
rushing from the guard-rooms down the stair, and others, 
chiefly farm-servants and grooms, who had heard the 
frightful news from two that were in the yard when the 
panther bounded over the wall, were approaching from 
the opposite side, armed with scythes and pitch-forks, the 
former more dangerous to each other than to the beast 


236 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


Dorothy, into whom, girl as she was, either Bellona or 
Diana, or both, had entered, was now thoroughly excited 
by the conflict she ruled, although she had not wasted a 
moment in watching it. Having just undone the collar 
of the fourth dog, she was hounding him on with a cry, 
little needed, as she flew to let go the fifth, a small bull- 
terrier, mad with rage and jealousy, when the crowd 
swept between her and her game. The beast was cap- 
tured, and the dogs taken off him, ere the terrier had 
had a taste or Dorothy a glimpse of the battle. 

As the men with cart-ropes dragged the panther away, 
terribly torn by the teeth of the dogs, and Tom Fool 
was following them, with his hands in his pockets, look- 
ing sheepish because of the share he had had in letting 
him loose, and the share he had not had in securing him 
again, Dorothy was looking about for her friend Marquis. 
All at once he came bounding up to her, and, exultant 
in the sense of accomplished duty, leaped up against her, 
at once turning her into a sanguineous object frightful 
to behold; for his wounds were bad, although none of 
them were serious except one in his throat. This upon 
examination she found so severe that to replace his col- 
lar was out of the question. Telling him therefore to 
follow her, in the confidence that she might now ask for 
him what she would, she left the yard, went up the stair, 
and was crossing the stone court, with the trusty fellow 
behind her, making a red track all the way, when out of 
the hall came the marquis, looking a little frightened. 
He started when he saw her, and turned pale, but 
perceiving instantly from her look that, notwithstanding 
the condition of her garments, she was unhurt, he cast a 
glance at her now rather disreputable-looking attendant, 
and said — 

“I told you so, mistress Dorothy! Now I under- 
stand ! It is that precious mastiff of yours, and no 


THE GEE AT MOGUL. 


237 


panther of mine that has been making this uproar in my 
quiet house ! Nay, but he looks evil enough for any 
devil’s work! Prithee keep him off me.” 

He drew back, for the dog, not liking the tone in 
which he addressed his mistress, had taken a step nearer 
to him. 

“ My lord,” said Dorothy, as she laid hold of the 
animal, for the first and only time in her life, a little 
inclined to be angry with her benefactor, “ you do my 
poor Marquis wrong. At the risk of his own life he has 
just saved your lordship’s groom, Shafto, from being torn 
in pieces by the Great Mogul.” 

While she spoke, some of those of the garrison who 
had been engaged in securing the animal, came up into 
the court, and attracted the marquis’s attention by their 
approach, which, in the relaxation of discipline con- 
sequent on excitement, was rather tumultuous. At their 
head was lord Charles, who had led them to the capture, 
and without whose ruling presence the enemy would not 
have been re-caged in twice the time. As they drew 
near, and saw Dorothy stand in battle-plight, with her 
dog beside her, even in. their lord’s presence they could 
not resist the impulse to cheer her. Annoyed at their 
breach of manners, the matquis had not however com- 
mitted himself to displeasure ere he spied a joke : 

“I told you so, mistress Dorothy!” he said again. 
“ That rival of mine has, as I feared, already made a 
party against me. You see how my own knaves, before 
my very face, cheer my enemy ! I presume, my lord,” 
he went on, turning to the mastiff, and removing his hat, 
“ it will be my wisdom to resign castle and title at once, 
and so forestall deposition.” 

Marquis replied with a growl, and amidst subdued yet 
merry laughter, lord Charles hastened to enlighten his 
father. 


238 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


“My lord,” he said, “ the dog has done nobly as ever 
dog, and deserves reward, not mockery, which it is plain 
he understands, and likes not. But it was not the 
mastiff, it was his fair mistress I and my men presumed 
on saluting in your lordship’s presence. No dog ever 
yet shook off collar of Cranford’s forging; nor is Marquis 
the only dog that merits your lordship’s acknowledg- 
ment; O’Brien and Tom Fool — the lurcher, I mean- 
seconded him bravely, and perhaps Strafford did best of 
all.” 

“ Prithee, now, take me with thee,” said the marquis. 
“Was, or was not the Great Mogul forth of his cage?” 

“ Indeed he was, my lord, and might be now in the 
fields but for cousin Vaughan there by your side.” 

The marquis turned and looked at her, but in his 
astonishment said nothing, and lord Charles went on. 

“When we got into the yard, there was the Great 
Mogul with three dogs upon him, and mistress Dorothy 
uncollaring Tom Fool and hounding him at the devilish 
brute; while poor Shafto, just waking up, lay on the 
stones, about three yards off the combat. It was the 
finest thing I ever saw, my lord.” 

The marquis turned again to Dorothy, and stared 
without speech or motion. 

“Mean you — ?” he said at length, addressing lord 
Charles, but still staring at Dorothy; “Mean you — ?” he 
said again, half stammering, and still staring. 

“I mean, my lord,” answered his son, “that mistress 
Dorothy, with seldshown courage, and equal judgment 
as to time and order of attack, when Tom Fool had fled, 
and poor Shafto, already evil torn, had swooned from 
loss of blood, came to the rescue, stood her ground, and 
loosed dog after dog, her own first, upon the animal. 
And by heaven ! it is all owing to her that he is already 
secured and carried back to his cage, nor any great 


THE GREAT MOGUL. 


239 


harm done save to the groom and the dogs, of which 
poor Strafford hath a hind leg crushed by the jaws of 
the beast, and must be killed.” 

“ He shall live,” cried the marquis, “ as long as he 
hath legs enough to eat and sleep with. — Mistress Doro- 
thy,” he went on, turning to her once more, “what is 
thy request ? It shall be performed even to the half of 
— of my marquisate.” 

“My lord,” returned Dorothy, “it is a small deed I 
have strewn to gather such weighty thanks.” 

“ Be honest as’ well as brave, mistress. Mock me no 
modesty,” said the marquis a little roughly. 

“Indeed, my lord, I but spoke as I deemed. The 
thing had to be done, and I did but do it. Had there 
been room to doubt, and I had yet done well, then truly 
I might have earned your lordship’s thanks. — But good 
my lord, do not therefore recall the word spoken,” she 
added hurriedly, “but grant me my boon. Your lord- 
ship sees my poor dog can endure no collar : let him 
therefore be my chamber-fellow until his throat be 
healed, when I shall again submit him to your lordship’s 
mandate.” 

“What you will, cousin. He is a noble fellow, and 
hath a right noble mistress.” 

“Will you, then, my lord Charles, order a bucket of 
water to be drawn for me, that I may wash his wounds 
ere I take him to my chamber?” 

Ten men at the word flew to the draw-well, but lord 
Charles ordered them all back to the guard-room, except 
two whom he sent to fetch a tub. With his own hands 
he then drew three bucketfuls of water, which he poured 
into the tub, and by the side of the well, in the open 
paved court, Dorothy washed her four-legged hero, and 
then retired with him, to do a like office for herself. 

The marquis stood for some time in the gathering 


240 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


dusk, looking on, and smiling to see how the sullen 
animal allowed his mistress to handle even his wounds 
without a whine, not to say a growl, at the pain she must 
have caused him. 

“I see, I see!” he said at length; “I have no chance 
with a rival like that !” and turning away he walked 
slowly into the oak parlor, threw himself down in his 
great chair, and sat there, gazing at the eyeless face of 
the keep, but thinking all the time of the courage and 
patience of his rival, the mastiff. 

“God made us both,” he said at length, “and he can 
grant me patience as well as him;” and so saying he 
went to bed. 

His washing over, the dog showed himself much ex- 
hausted, and it was with hanging head he followed his 
mistress up the grand staircase and the second spiral 
one that led yet higher to her chamber. Thither pres- 
ently came lady Elizabeth, carrying a cushion and a 
deerskin for him to lie upon, and it was with much 
apparent satisfaction that the wounded and wearied 
animal, having followed his tail but one turn, dropped 
like a log on his well-earned couch. 

The night was hot, and Dorothy fell asleep with her 
door wide open. 

In the morning Marquis was nowhere to be found. 
Dorothy searched for him everywhere, but in vain. 

“It is because you mocked him, my lord,” said the 
governor to his father at breakfast. “I doubt not he 
said to himself, ‘ If I am a dog, my lord need not have 
mocked me, for I could not help it, and I did my 
duty.’ ” 

“I would make him an apology,” returned the mar- 
quis, “an’ I had but the opportunity. Truly it were 
evil minded knowingly to offer insult to any being capa- 
ble Of so regarding it. But, Charles, I bethink me: 


THE GREA T MOGUL. 241 

didst ever learn how our friend got into the castle ? It 
was assuredly thy part to discover that secret.” 

“No, my lord. It hath never been found out in so far 
as I know.” 

“ That is an unworthy answer, lord Charles. As gov- 
ernor of the castle, you ought to have had the matter 
thoroughly searched into.” 

“I will see to it now, my lord,” said the governor, 
rising. 

“Do, my lad,” returned his father. 

And lord Charles did inquire ; but not a ray of light 
did he succeed in letting in upon the mystery. The 
inquiry might, however, have lasted longer and been 
more successful, had not lord Herbert just then come 
home, with the welcome news of the death of Hampden, 
from a wound received in attacking prince Rupert at 
Chalgrove. He brought news also of prince Maurice’s 
brave fight at Bath, and lord Wilmot’s victory over sir 
William Waller at Devizes — which latter, lord Herbert 
confessed, yielded him some personal satisfaction, seeing 
he owed Waller more grudges than as a Christian he had 
well known how to manage: now he was able to bear 
him a less bitter animosity. The queen too had reached 
Oxford, bringing large reinforcement to her husband, 
and prince Rupert had taken Bristol, castle and all. 
Things were looking mighty hopeful, lord Herbert was 
radiant, and lady Margaret, for the first time since 
Molly’s death, was merry. The castle was illuminated, 
and Marquis forgotten by all but Dorothy. 


L 


CHAPTER XXV \ 


RICHARD HEYWOOD. 

S O things looked ill for the puritans in general, and 
Richard Heywood had his full portion in the distri- 
bution of the evils allotted them. Following lord Fair- 
fax, he had shared his defeat by the marquis of Newcastle 
on Atherton moor, where of his score of men he lost 
five, and was, along with his mare, pretty severely 
wounded. Hence it had become absolutely necessary 
for both of them, if they were to render good service at 
any near future, that they should have rest and tending. 
Towards the middle of July, therefore, Richard, followed 
by Stopchase, and several others of his men who had 
also been wounded and were in need of nursing, rode up 
to his father’s door. Lady was taken off to her own 
stall, and Richard was led into the house by his father — 
without a word of tenderness, but with eyes and hands 
that waited and tended like those of a mother. 

Roger Heywood was troubled in heart at the aspect of 
affairs. There was now a strong peace-party in the par- 
liament, and to him peace and ruin seemed the same 
thing. If the parliament should now listen to overtures 
of accommodation, all for which he and those with whom 
he chiefly sympathized had striven, was in the greatest 
peril, and might be, if not irrecoverably lost, at least lost 
sight of, perhaps for a century. The thing that mainly 
comforted him in his anxiety was that his son had showed 
himself worthy, not merely in the matter of personal 
courage, which he took as a thing of course in a Hey- 


RICHARD HEY WOOD. 


243 


wood, but in his understanding of and spiritual relation 
to the questions really at issue, — not those only which 
filled the mouths of men. For the best men and the 
weightiest questions are never seen in the fore-front of 
the battle of their time, save by “ larger other eyes than 
ours.” 

But now, from his wounds, as he thought, and the 
depression belonging to the haunting sense of defeat a 
doubt had come to life in Richard’s mind, which, because 
it was born in weakness, he very pardonably looked 
upon as born of weakness, and therefore regarded as 
itself weak and cowardly, whereas his mood had been 
but the condition that favored its development. It came 
and came again, maugre all his self-recrimination because 
of it : what was all this fighting for ? It was well indeed 
that nor king nor bishop should interfere with a man’s 
rights, either in matters of taxation or worship, but the 
war could set nothing right either betwixt him and his 
neighbor, or betwixt him and his God. 

There was in the mind of Richard, innate, but more 
rapidly developed since his breach with Dorothy, a 
strong tendency towards the supernatural— I mean by 
the word that which neither any one of the senses nor 
all of them together can reveal. He was one of those 
young men, few, yet to be found in all ages of the world’s 
history, who, in health and good earthly hope, and with- 
out any marked poetic or metaphysical tendency, yet 
know in their nature the need of conscious communion 
with the source of that nature— truly the veriest absurdity 
if there be no God, but as certainly the most absolute 
necessity of conscious existence if there be a first life 
from whom our life is born. 

“ Am I not free now ? ” he said to himself, as he lay 
on his bed in his own gable of the many-nooked house; 
“ am I not free to worship God as I please ? Who will 


244 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL . 


interfere with me ? Who can prevent me? As to form 
and ceremony, what are they, or what is the absence of 
them, to the worship in which my soul seeks to go forth ? 
What the better shall I be when all this is over even if 
the best of our party carry the day? Will Cromwell 
rend for me the heavy curtain, which, ever as I lift up 
my heart, seems to come rolling down between me and 
him whom I call my God ? If I could pass within that 
curtain, what would Charles, or Laud, or Newcastle, or 
the mighty Cromwell himself and all his Ironsides be to 
me ? Am I not on the wrong road for the high peak ?” 

But then he thought of others — of the oppressed and 
the superstitious, of injustice done and not endured — 
not wrapt in the pearly antidote of patience, but rank- 
ling in the soul; of priests who, knowing not God, 
substituted ceremonies for prayer, and led the seeking 
heart afar from its goal — and said that his arm could at 
least fight for the truth in others, if only his heart could 
fight for the truth in himself. No; he would go on as 
he had begun; for, might it not be the part of him who 
could take the form of an angel of light when he would 
deceive, to make use of inward truths, which might well 
be the strength of his own soul, to withdraw him from 
the duties he owed to others, and cause the heart of 
devotion to paralyze the arm of battle ? Besides, was he 
not now in a low physical condition, and therefore the 
less likely to judge truly with regard to affairs of active 
outer life ? His business plainly was to gain strength of 
body that the fumes of weakness might no longer cloud 
his brain, and that, if he had to die for the truth, whether 
in others or in himself, he might die in power, like the 
blast of an exploding mine, and not like the flame of an 
expiring lamp. And certainly, as his body grew stronger, 
and the impulses to action, so powerful in all healthy 
youth, returned, his doubts grew weaker, and he became 


RICHARD HEY WOOD. 245 

more and more satisfied that he had been in the right 
path. 

Lady outstripped her master in the race for health, 
and after a few days had oats and barley in a profusion 
which, although far from careless, might well have 
seemed to her unlimited. Twice every day, sometimes 
oftener, Richard went to see her, and envied the rapidity 
of her recovery from the weakness which scanty rations, 
loss of blood, and the inflammation of her wounds had 
caused. Had there been any immediate call for his 
services, however, that would have brought his strength 
with it. Had the struggle been still going on upon the 
fields of battle instead of in the houses of words, he 
would have been well in half the time. But Waller and 
Essex were almost without an army between them, and 
were at bitter strife with each other, while the peace- 
party seemed likely to carry everything before them, 
women themselves presenting a petition for peace, and 
some of them using threats to support it. 

At length, chiefly through the exertions of the presby- 
terian preachers and the common council of the city of 
London, the peace-party was defeated, and a vigorous 
levying and pressing of troops began anew. So the hour 
had come for Richard to mount. His men were all in 
health and spirits, and their vacancies had been filled 
up. Lady was frolicsome, and Richard was perfectly 
well. 

The day before they were to start he took the mare 
out for a gallop across the fields. Never had he known 
her so full of life. She rushed at hedge and ditch as if 
they had been squares of royalist infantry. Her madness 
woke the fervor of battle in Richard’s own veins, and 
as they swept along together, it grew until he felt like 
one of the Arabs of old, flashing to the harvest field of 
God, where the corn to be reaped was the lives of infidels. 


246 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


and the ears to be gleaned were the heads of the fallen. 
That night he scarcely slept for eagerness to be gone. 

Waking early from what little sleep he had had, he 
dressed and armed himself hurriedly, and ran to the 
stables, where already his men were bustling about get- 
ting their horses ready for departure. 

Lady had a loose box for herself, and thither straight 
her master went, wondering as he opened the door of it 
that he did not hear her usual morning welcome. The 
place was empty. He called Stopchase. 

“Where is my mare?” he said. “Surely no one has 
been fool enough to take her to the water just as we are 
going to start.” 

Stopchase stood and stared without reply, then turned 
and left the stable, but came back almost immediately, 
looking horribly scared. Lady was nowhere to be seen 
or heard. Richard rushed hither and thither, storming. 
Not a man about the place could give him a word of 
enlightenment. All knew she was in that box the night 
before ; none knew when she left it or where she was now. 

He ran to his father, but all his father could see or 
say was no more than was plain to every one : the mare 
had been carried off in the night, and that with a skill 
worthy of a professional horse-thief. 

What now was the poor fellow to do ? If I were to 
tell the truth — namely, that he wept — so courageous are 
the very cowards of this century that they would sneer 
at him ; but I do tell it notwithstanding, for I have little 
regard for the opinion of any man who sneers. What- 
ever he may or may not have been as a man, Richard 
felt but half a soldier without his mare, and, his country 
calling him, oppressed humanity crying aloud for his 
sword and arm, his men waiting for him, and Lady gone, 
what was he to do ? 

“ Never heed, Dick, my boy,” said his father. — It was 


RICHARD HEY WOOD. 


247 


the first time since he had put on man’s attire that he 
had called him Dick. — “Thou shalt have my Oliver. 
He is a horse of good courage, as thou knowest, and 
twice the weight of thy little mare.” 

“Ah, father! you do not know Lady so well as I. 
Not Cromwell’s best horse could comfort me for her. I 
must find her. Give me leave, sir ; I must go and think. 
I cannot mount and ride, and leave her I know not 
where. Go I will, if it be on a broomstick, but this 
morning I ride not. Let the men put up their horses, 
Stopchase, and break their fast.” 

“It is a wile of the enemy,” said Stopchase. “Truly, 
it were no marvel to me were the good mare at this 
moment eating her oats in the very stall where we have 
in vain sought her. I will go and search for her with 
my hands.” 

“Verily,” said Mr. Heywood with a smile, “to fear 
the devil is not to run from him) — How much of her 
hay hath she eaten, Stopchase?” he added, as the man 
returned with disconsolate look. 

“About a bottle, sir,” answered Stopchase rather in- 
definitely ; but the conclusion drawn was, that she had 
been taken very soon after the house was quiet. 

The fact was, that since the return of their soldiers, 
poor watch had been kept by the people of Redware. 
Increase of confidence had led to carelessness. Mr. 
Heywood afterwards made inquiry, and had small reason 
to be satisfied with what he discovered. 

“ The thief must have been one who knew the place,” 
said Faithful. 

“Why dost thou think so?” asked his master. 

“ How swooped he else so quietly upon the best ani- 
mal, sir ?” returned the man. 

“She was in the place of honor,” answered Mr. Hey- 
wood. 


248 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


“Scudamore!” said Richard to himself. It might be 
no light — only a flash in his brain. But even that was 
precious in the utter darkness. 

“ Sir,” he said, turning to his father, “ I would I had a 
plan of Raglan stables.” 

“What wouldst thou an’ thou hadst, my son?” asked 
Mr. Heywood. 

“Nay, sir, that wants thinking. But I believe my 
poor mare is at this moment in one of those vaults they 
tell us of.” 

“It may be, my son. It is reported that the earl 
hath of late been generous in giving of horses. Poor 
soldiers the king will find them that fight for horses, 
or titles either. Such will never stand before them that 
fight for the truth — in the love thereof ! Eh, Rich- 
ard?” 

“Truly, sir, I know not,” answered his son, disconso- 
lately. “I hope I love the truth, and I think so doth 
Stopchase, after his kind ; and yet were we of those that 
fled from Atherton moor.” 

“Thou didst not flee until thou couldst no more, 
my son. It asketh greater courage of some men to flee 
when the hour of fight hath come, for they would rather 
fight on to the death than allow, if but to their own 
souls, that they are foiled. But a man may flee in faith 
as well as fight in faith, my son, and each is good in its 
season. There is a time for all things under the sun. 
In the end, when the end cometh, we shall see how it 
hath all gone. — When, then, wilt thou ride?” 

“To-morrow, an’ it please you, sir. I should fight 
but evil with the knowledge that I had left my best 
battle-friend in the hands of the Philistines, nor sent 
even a cry after her.” 

“ What boots it, Richard ? If she be within Raglan 
walls, they yield her not again. Bide thy time; and 


RICHARD HEY WOOD. 


249 


when thou meetest thy foe on thy friend's back, woe 
betide him!” 

“Amen, sir!” said Richard. “But with your leave I 
will not go to-day. I give you my promise I will go 
to-morrow.” 

“ Be it so, then. — Stopchase, let the men be ready at 
this hour on the morrow. The rest of the day is their 
own.” 

So saying, Roger Heywood turned away, in no small 
distress, although he concealed it, both at the loss of the 
mare and his son’s grief over it. Betaking himself to 
his study, he plunged himself straightway deep in the 
comfort of the last born and longest named of Milton’s 
tracts. 

The moment he was gone, Richard, who had now 
made up his mind as to his first procedure, sent Stop- 
chase away, saddled Oliver, rode slowly out of the yard, 
and struck across the fields. After a half-hour’s ride he 
stopped at a lonely cottage at the foot of a rock on the 
banks of the Usk. There he dismounted, and having 
fastened his horse to the little gate in front, entered a 
small garden full of sweet-smelling herbs mingled with a 
few flowers, and going up to the door, knocked, and then 
lifted the latch. 


CHAPTER XXVI. 


THE WITCH’S COTTAGE. 

R ICHARD was met on the threshold by mistress 
Rees, in the same old-fashioned dress, all but the 
hat, which I have already described. On her head she 
wore a widow’s cap, with large crown, thick frill, and 
black ribbon encircling it between them. She welcomed 
him with the kindness almost of an old nurse, and led 
the way to the one chair in the room — beside the hearth, 
where a fire of peat was smouldering rather than burning 
beneath the griddle, on which she was cooking oat-cake. 
The cottage was clean and tidy. From the smoky rafters 
hung many bunches of dried herbs, which she used partly 
for medicines, partly for charms. To herself the line 
dividing these uses was not very clearly discernible. 

“ I am in trouble, mistress Rees,” said Richard, as he 
seated himself. 

“ Most men do be in trouble most times, master Hey- 
wood,” returned the old woman. “ Dost find thou hast 
taken the wrong part, eh? — There be no need to tell 
what aileth thee. ’Tis a bit easier to cast off a maiden 
than to forget her — eh ?” 

“No, mistress Rees, I came not to trouble thee con- 
cerning what is past and gone,” said Richard with a sigh. 
“ It is a taste of thy knowledge I want rather than of thy 
skill.” 

“What skill I have is honest,” said the old woman. 

“ Far be it from me to say otherwise, mother Rees. 
But I need it not now. Tell me, hast thou not been once 
and again within the great gates of Raglan castle?” 


THE WITCH'S COTTAGE. 


251 


“ Yes, my son — oftener than I can tell thee,” answered 
the old woman. “ It is but a se’ennight agone that I sat 
a talking with my son Thomas Rees in the chimney 
corner of Raglan kitchen, after the supper was served, 
and the cook at rest. It was there my lad was turnspit 
once upon a time, for as great a man as he is now with 
my lord and all the household. Those were hard times 
after my good man left me, master Heywood. But the 
cream will to the top, and there is my son now — who but 
he in kitchen and hall ? Well, of all places in the mortal 
world, that Raglan passes!” 

“ They tell strange things of the stables there, mistress 
Rees ; know you aught of them ?” 

“ Strange things, master? They tell naught but good 
of the stables that tell the truth. As to the armory, now 
— well it is not for such as mother Rees to tell tales out 
of school.” 

“ What I heard, and wanted to ask thee about, mother, 
was that they are under ground. Thinkest thou horses 
can fare well under ground ? Thou knowest a horse as 
well as a dog, mother.” 

Ere she replied, the old woman took her cake from the 
griddle, and laid it on a wooden platter, then caught up 
a three-legged stool, set it down by Richard, seated her- 
self at his knee, and assumed the look of mystery 
wherewith she was in the habit of garnishing every bit of 
knowledge, real or fancied, which it pleased her to com- 
municate. 

“ Hear me, and hold thy peace, master Richard Hey- 
wood,” she said. “As good horses as ever stamped in 
Redware stables go down into Raglan vaults; but yet 
they eat their oats and their barley, and when they lift 
their heads they look out to the ends of the world. 
Whether it be by the skill of the mason or of such as the 
hidden art of my lord Herbert knows best how to compel, 


252 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


let them say that list to make foes where it were safer 
to have friends. But this I am free to tell thee — that in 
the pitched court, betwixt the antechamber to my lord’s 
parlor that hath its windows to the moat, and the great 
bay window of the hall that looks into that court, there 
goeth a descent, as it seemeth of stairs only ; but to him 
that knoweth how to pull a certain tricker, as of an 
harquebus or musquetoon, the whole thing turneth 
around, and straightway from a stair passeth into an 
easy matter of a sloping way by the which horses go up 
and down. And Thomas he telleth me also that at the 
further end of the vaults to which it leads, the which 
vaults pass under the marquis’s oak parlor, and under 
all the breadth of the fountain court, as they do call the 
other court of the castle, thou wilt come to a great iron 
door in the foundations of one of the towers, in which 
my lord hath contrived stabling for a hundred and more 
horses, and that, mark my words, my son, not in any 
vault or underground dungeon, but in the uppermost 
chamber of all.” 

“And how do they get up there, mother?” asked 
Richard, who listened with all his ears. 

“ Why, they go round and round, and ever the rounder 
the higher, as a fly might crawl up a corkscrew. And 
there is a stair also in the same screw, as it were, my 
Thomas do tell me, by which the people of the house do 
go up and down, and know nothing of the way for the 
horses within, neither of the stalls at the top of the 
tower, where they stand and see the country. Yet do 
they often marvel at the sounds of their hoofs, and their 
harness, and their cries, and their champing of their corn. 
And that is how Raglan can send forth so many horse- 
men for the use of the king. But alack, master Hey- 
wood ! is it for a wise woman like myself to forget that 
thou art of the other part, and that these are secrets of 


THE WITCH'S COTTAGE . 


253 


state which scarce another in the castle but my son 
Thomas knoweth aught concerning ! What will become 
of me that I have told them to a Heywood, being, as is 
well known, myself no more of a royalist than another?” 

And she regarded him a little anxiously. 

“What should it signify, mother,” said Richard, “ so 
long as neither you nor I believe a word of it? Horses 
go up a tower to bed forsooth! Yet for the matter of 
that, I will engage to ride my mare up any corkscrew 
wide enough to turn her forelock and tail in — ay, and 
down again too, which is another business with most 
horses. But come now, mother Rees, confess this all a 
fable of thine own contriving to make a mock of a farm- 
bred lad like me.” 

“ In good sooth, master Heywood,” answered the old 
woman, “ I tell the tale as ’twas told to me. I avouch it 
not for certain, knowing that my son Thomas hath a 
seething brain and loveth a joke passing well, nor heedeth 
greatly upon whom he putteth it, whether his master or 
his mother ; but for the stair by the great hall window, 
that stair have I seen with mine own eyes, though for the 
horses to come and go thereby, that truly have I not 
seen. And for the rest I only say it may well be for 
there is nothing of it all which the wise man, my lord 
Herbert, could not with a word — -and that a light one for 
him to speak, though truly another might be torn to 
pieces in saying it.” 

“I would I might see the place !” murmured Richard. 

“ An’ it were not thou art such a ! But it boots 

not talking, master Heywood. Thou art too well known 
for a puritan — roundhead they call thee ; and thou hast 
given them and theirs too many hard knocks, my son, to 
look they should be willing to let thee gaze on the won- 
ders of their great house. Else, being that I am a friend 
to thee and thine, I would gladly . But, as I say, it 


254 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


boots nothing — although I have a son, who being more 
of the king’s part than I am 

“Hast thou not then art enough, mother, to set me 
within Raglan walls for an hour or two after midnight ? 
I ask no more,” said Richard, who, although he was but 
leading the way to quite another proposal, nor desired 
aid of art black or white, yet could not help a little 
tremor at making the bare suggestion of the unhallowed 
idea. 

“ An’ I had, I dared not use it,” answered the old 
woman; “for is not my lord Herbert there? Were it 

not for him — well . But I dare not, as I say, for his 

art is stronger than mine, and from his knowledge I could 
hide nothing. And I dare not for thy sake either, my 
young master. Once inside those walls of stone, those 
gates of oak, and those portcullises of iron, and thou 
comes not out alive again, I warrant thee.” 

“ I should like to try once, though,” said Richard. 
“ Couldst thou not disguise me, mother Rees, and send 
me with a message to thy son ?” 

“ I tell thee, young master, I dare not,” answered the 
old woman, with utmost solemnity. “ And if I did, thy 
speech would presently bewray thee.” 

“ I would then I knew that part of the wall a man 
might scramble over in the dark,” said Richard. 

“Thinks thou my lord marquis hath been fortifying 
his castle for two years that a young lleywood, even if 
he be one of the godly, and have long legs to boot, 
should make a vaulting horse of it? I know but one 
knows the way over Raglan walls, and thou wilt hardly 
persuade him to tell thee,” said mother Rees, with a grim 
chuckle. 

As she spoke she rose, and went towards her sleeping 
chamber. Then first Richard became aware that for 
some time he had been hearing a scratching and whining. 


THE WITCH'S COTTAGE. 


256 


She opened the door, and out ran a wretched-looking 
dog, huge and gaunt, with the red marks of recent 
wounds all over his body, and his neck swathed in a dis- 
colored bandage. He went straight to Richard, and 
began fawning upon him and licking his hands. Miser- 
able and most disreputable as he looked, he recognized 
in him Dorothy’s mastiff. 

“My poor Marquis!” he said, “what evil hath then 
befallen thee ? What would thy mistress say to see thee 
thus?” 

Marquis whined and wagged his tail as if he understood 
every word he said, and Richard was stung to the heart 
at the sight of his apparently forlorn condition. 

“ Hath thy mistress then forsaken thee too, Marquis?” 
he said, and from fellow-feeling could have taken the dog 
in his arms. 

“I think not so,” said mistress Rees. “ He hath been 
with her in the castle ever since she went there.” 

“Poor fellow, how thou art torn!” said Richard. 
“ What animal of thine own size could have brought thee 
into such a plight ? Or can it be that thou hast found a 
bigger? But that thou hast beaten him I am well 
assured.” 

Marquis wagged an affirmative. 

“ Fangs of biggest dog in Gwent never tore him like 
that, master Hey wood. Heark’ee now. He cannot tell 
his tale, so I must tell thee all I know of the matter. I 
was over to Raglan village three nights agone, to get 
me a bottle of strong waters from mine host of the White 
Horse, for the distilling of certain of my herbs good for 
inward disorders, when he told me that about an hour 
before there had come from the way of the castle all of a 
sudden the most terrible noise that ever human ears were 
pierced withal, as if every devil in hell of dog or cat kind 
had broken loose, and fierce battle was waging between 


256 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


them in the Yellow Tower. I said little, but had my 
own fears for my lord Herbert, and came home sad and 
slow and went to bed. Now what should wake me the 
next morning, just a$ daylight broke the neck of the 
darkness, but a pitiful whining and obstinate scratching 
at my door ! And who should it be but that same lovely 
little lapdog of my young mistress now standing by thy 
knee ! But had thou seen him then, master Richard ! 
It was the devil’s hackles he had been through ! Such 
a torn dishclout of a dog thou never did see ! I under- 
stood it all in a moment. He had made one in the fight, 
and whether he had had the better or the worse of it, 
like a wise dog as he always was he knew where to find 
what would serve his turn, and so when the house was 
quiet, off he came to old mother Rees to be plaistered 
and physicked. But what perplexes my old brain is, 
how, at that hour of the night, for to reach my door when 
he did, and him hardly able to stand when I let him in, 
it must have been dead night when he left — it do perplex 
me, I say, to think how at that time of the night he got 
out of that prison, watched as it is both night and day 
by them that sleep not.” 

“He couldn’t have come over the wall?” suggested 
Richard. 

“ Had thou seen him thou would not make that the 
question.” 

“ Then he must have come through or under it ; there 
are but three ways,” said Richard to himself. “ He’s a 
big dog,” he added aloud, regarding him thoughtfully as 
he patted his sullen affectionate head. “ He’s a big dog,” 
he repeated. 

“ I think a’most he be the biggest dog I ever saw,” 
assented mistress Rees. 

“ I would I were less about the shoulders !” said Rich- 
ard. 


THE WITCH'S COTTAGE. 


257 


“Who ever heard a man worth his mess of pottage 
wish him such a wish as that, master Heywood ! What 
would mistress Dorothy say to hear thee? I warrant 
me she findeth no fault with the breadth of thy shoul- 
ders. ” 

“ I am less in the compass than I was before the last 
fight,” he went on, without heeding his hostess, and as if 
he talked to the dog, who stood with his chin on his 
knee, looking up in his face. “Where thou, Marquis, 
canst walk, I doubt not to creep ; but if thou must creep, 
what then is left for me? Yet how couldst thou creep 
with such wounds in thy throat and belly, my poor Mar- 
quis?” 

The dog whined, and moved all his feet, one after the 
other, but without taking his chin off Richard’s knee. 

“Hast seen thy mistress’s little Dick, Marquis?” 
asked Richard. 

Again the dog whined, moved his feet, and turned his 
head towards the door. But whether it was that he 
understood the question, or only that he recognized the 
name of his friend, who could tell ? 

“ Will thou take me to Dick, Marquis ?” 

The dog turned and walked to the door, then stood 
and looked back, as if waiting for Richard to open it and 
follow him. 

“ No, Marquis, we must not go before night,” said 
Richard. 

The dog returned slowly to his knee, and again laid 
his chin upon it. 

“ What will the dog do next, thinkest thou, mother — 
when he finds himself well again, I mean ? Will he run 
from thee ?” said Richard. 

“ He would be like neither dog nor man I ever knew, 
did he not,” returned the old woman. “ He will for 
sure go back where he got his hurts — to revenge them if 


258 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL . 


he may, for that is the custom also with both dogs and 
men.” 

“ Couldst thou make sure of him that he run not 
away till I come again at night, mother ?” 

“ Certain I can, my son. I will shut him up whence 
he will not break so long as he hears me nigh him.” 

“ Do so then an’ thou lovest me, mother Rees, and I 
will be here with the first of the darkness.” 

“An’ I love thee, master Richard? Nay, but I do 
love thy good face and thy true words, be thou puritan, or 
roundhead, or fanatic, or what evil name soever the wicked 
fashion of the times granteth to men to call thee.” 

“Hark in thine ear then, mother: I will call no 
names ; but they of Raglan have, as I truly believe, 
stolen from me my Lady.” 

“ Nay, nay, master Richard !” interrupted mistress 
Rees ; “ did I not tell thee with my own mouth that she 
went of her own free will, and in the company of the 
reverend sir Matthew Herbert?” 

“Alas! thou goest not with me, mother Rees. I 
meant not mistress Dorothy. She is lost to me indeed ; 
but so also is my poor mare, which was stolen last night 
from Redware stables as the watchers slept.” 

“ Alack-a-day !” cried Goody Rees, holding up her 
hands in sore trouble for her friend. “ But what then 
dreams thou of doing ? Not surely, before all the saints 
in heaven, will thou adventure thy body within Raglan 
walls! But I speak like a fool. Thou canst not.” 

“ This good dog,” said Richard, stroking Marquis, 
“must, as thou thyself plainly seest, have found some 
way of leaving Raglan without the knowledge or will of 
its warders. Where he gat him forth, will he not get 
him in again ? And where dog can go, man may at 
least endeavor to follow. — Mayhap he hath for himself 
scratched a way, as many dogs will.” 


THE WITCH'S COTTAGE. 


259 


“But, for the love of God, master Heywood, what 
wouldst thou do inside that stone cage ? Thy mare, be 
she, as thou hast often vaunted her to me, the first for 
courage and wisdom and strength and fleetness of all 
mares created — be her fore feet like a man’s hands and 
her heart like a woman’s heart, as thou sayest, yet 
cannot she overleap Raglan walls ; and thinks thou they 
will raise portcullis and open gate and drop drawbridge 
to let thee and her ride forth in peace? It were a fool’s 
errand, my young master, and nowise befitting thy young 
wisdom.” 

“ What I shall do, when I am at length within the 
walls, I cannot tell thee, mother. Nor have I ever yet 
known much good in forecasting. To have to think, 
when the hour is come, of what thou didst before re- 
solve, instead of setting thyself to understand what is 
around thee, and perchance the whole matter different 
from what thou hadst imagined, is to stand like Lazarus 
bound hand and foot in thine own graveclothes. It will 
be given me to meet what comes, or if not, who will bar 
me from meeting what follows ?” 

“ Master Heywood,” cried Goody Rees, drawing her- 
self up with rebuke, “ for a man that is born of a woman 
to talk so wisely and so foolishly both in a breath! — 
But,” she added, with a change of tone, “ I know better 
than bar the path to a Heywood. An’ he will, he will. 
And thou hast been vilely used, my young master. I 
will do what I can to help thee to thine own-— and no 
more — no more than thine own. Hark in thine ear 
now. — But first swear to me by the holy cross, puritan 
as thou art, that thou wilt make no other use of what I 
tell thee but to free thy stolen mare. I know thou may 
be trusted even with the secret that would slay thine 
enemy. But I must have thy oath notwithstanding 
thereto.” 


260 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


“ I will not swear by the cross, which was never holy, 
for thereby was the Holy slain. I will not swear at all, 
mother Rees. I will pledge thee the word of a man who 
fears God, that I will in no way dishonorable make use 
of that which thou tellest me. An’ that suffice not, I 
will go without thy help, trusting in God, who never 
made that mare to carry the enemy of the truth into the 
battle.” 

“ But what an’ thou should take the staff of strife to 
measure thy doings withal ? That may then seem hon- 
orable, done to an enemy, which thou would scorn to 
do to one of thine own part even if he wronged thee.” 

“Nay, mother; but I will do nothing thou wouldst 
think dishonorable — that I promise thee. I will use 
what thou tellest me for no manner of hurt to my lord of 
Worcester or aught that is his. But Lady is not his, 
and her will I carry, if I may, from Raglan stables back 
to Redware.” 

“ I am content. Hearken then, my son. Raglan 
watchword for the rest of the month is — St. George and 
St. Patrick ! May it stand thee in good stead.” 

“ I thank thee, mother, with all my heart,’ said Rich- 
ard, rising jubilant. “ Now shut up the dog, and let me 
go. One day it may lie in my power to requite thee ’ 

“ Thou hast requited me beforehand, master Heywocd 
Old mother Rees never forgets. 1 would have done 
well by thee with the maiden, an’ thou would but have 
hearkened to my words. But the day may yet come. 
Go now, and return with the last of the twilight. Come 
hither, Marquis.” 

The dog obeyed, and she shut him again in her cham- 
ber. 


CHAPTER XXVII. 


THE MOAT OF THE KEEP. 

R ICHARD left the cottage, and mounted Oliver. 

To pass the time and indulge a mournful memory, 
he rode round by Wyfern. When he reached home, he 
found that his father had gone to pay a visit some miles 
off. He went to his own room, cast himself on his bed, 
and tried to think. But his birds would not come at his 
call, or coming would but perch for a moment, and 
again fly. As he lay thus, his eyes fell on his cousin, 
old Thomas Heywood’s little folio, lying on the window 
seat where he had left it two years ago, and straightway 
his fluttering birds alighting there, he thought how the 
book had been lying unopened all the months, while he 
had been passing through so many changes and com- 
motions How still had the room been around it, how 
silent the sunshine and the snow, while he had inhab- 
ited tumult — tumult in his heart, tumult in his ears, 
tumult of sorrows, of vain longings, of tongues and of 
swords f Where was the gain to him ? Was he nearer 
to that center 6f peace, which the book, as it lay there 
so still, seemed to his eyes to typify ? The maiden 
loved from childhood had left him for a foolish king and 
a phantom-church : had he been himself pursuing any- 
thing better ? He had been fighting for the truth : had 
he then gained her ? where was she ? what was she if 
not a living thing in the heart ? Would the wielding of 
the sword in its name ever embody an abstraction, call 
it from the vasty deep of metaphysics up into self con- 


202 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


scious existence in the essence of a man’s own vitality? 
Was not the question still, how, of all loves, to grasp the 
thing his soul thirsted after ? 

To many a sermon, cleric and lay, had he listened 
since he left that volume there — in church, in barn, in the 
open field — but the religion which seemed to fill all the 
horizon of these preachers’ vision, was to him little better 
than another tumult of words ; while, far beyond all the 
tumults, hung still, in the vast of thought unarrived, 
unembodied, that something without a shape yet bearing 
a name around which hovered a vague light as of some- 
thing dimly understood, after which, in every moment of 
inbreaking silence, his soul straightway began to thirst. 
And, if the Truth was not to be found in his own heart, 
could he think that the blows by which he had not 
gained her had yet given her ? — that through means of 
the tumult he had helped to arouse in her name and for 
her sake, but in which he had never caught a sight of 
her beauteous form, she now sat radiantly smiling in any 
one human soul where she sat not before ? 

Or should he say it was Freedom for which he had 
fought ? Was he then one whit more free in the reality 
of his being than he had been before ? Or had ever a 
battle wherein he had periled his own life, striking for 
liberty, conveyed that liberty into a single human heart? 
Was there one soul the freer within, from the nearer 
presence of that freedom which would have a man en- 
dure the heaviest wrong rather than inflict the lightest ? 
He could not tell, but he greatly doubted. 

His thought went wandering away, and vision after 
vision, now of war and now of love, now of earthly 
victory and now of what seemed unattainable felicity, 
arose and passed before him, filling its place. At length 
it came back: he would glance again into his cousin 
Thomas’s book. He had but to stretch out his hand to 


THE MOAT OF THE KEEP . 


263 


take it, for his bed was close by the window. Opening 
it at random, he came upon this passage : 

And as the Mill, that circumgyreth fast, 

Refuseth nothing that therein is cast, 

But whatsoever is to it assign’d 
Gladly receives, and willing is to grynd, 

But if the violence be with nothing fed, 

It wasts itselfe : ev’n so the Heart mis-led, 

Still turning round, unstable as the Ocean, 

Never at rest, but in continuall Motion, 

Sleepe or awake, is still in agitation 
Of some presentment in th’ imagination. 

If to the Mill-stones you shall cast in Sand, 

It troubles them, and makes them at a stand : 

If Pitch, it chokes them ; or if Chaffe let fall, 

They are employ’d, but to no use at all. 

So, bitter thoughts molest, unclean thoughts staine 
And spot the Heart ; while those idle and vaine 
Weare it and to no purpose. For when ’tis 
Drowsie and carelesse of the future bliss, 

And to implore Heaven’s aid, it doth imply 
How far is it remote from the most High. 

For whilest our Hearts on Terrhen things we place. 

There cannot be least hope of Divine grace. 

**Just such a mill is my mind,” he said to himself. 
“ But can I suppose that to sit down and read all day 
like a monk, would bring me nearer to the thing I 
want ?” 

He turned over the volume half thinking, half brood- 
ing. 

“ I will look again,” he thought, “ at the verses which 
that day my father gave me to read. Truly I did not 
well understand them.” 

Once more he read the poem through. It closes with 
these lines : 

So far this Light the Raies extends, 

As that no place It comprehends. 


264 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL, 


So deep this Sound , that though it speake, 

It cannot by a Sence so weake 
Be entertain’d. A Redolent Grace 
The Aire blowes not from place to place. 

A pleasant Taste , of that delight 
It doth confound all Appetite. 

A strict Embrace , not felt, yet leaves 
That vertue, where it takes it cleaves. 

This Light , this Sound , this Savouring Grace t 
This Tastefull Sweet , this Strict Embrace , 

No Place containes, no Eye can see, 

My God is ; and there’s none but Hee. 

“ I have gained something,” he cried aloud : “ I un- 
derstand it now — at least I think I do. What if, in 
fighting for the truth as men say, the doors of a man’s 
own heart should at length fly open for her entrance ! 
What if the understanding of that which is uttered 
concerning her, be a sign that she herself draweth nigh ! 
Then I will go on. — And that I may go on, I must 
recover my mare.” 

Honestly, however, he could not quite justify the 
scheme. All the efforts of his imagination, as he rode 
home, to bring his judgment to the same side with itself, 
had failed, and he had been driven to confess the project 
a foolhardy one. But, on the other hand, had he not 
had a leadirig thitherward? Whence else the sudden 
conviction that Scudamore had taken her, and the burn- 
ing desire to seek her in Raglan stables ? And had he 
not heard mighty arguments from the lips of the most 
favored preachers in the army for an unquestioning 
compliance with leadings ? Nay, had he not had more 
than a leading ? Was it not a sign to encourage him, 
even a pledge of happy result, that, within an hour of it, 
and in consequence of his first step in partial compliance 
with it, he had come upon the only creature capable of 
conducting him into the robber’s hold ? And had he 


THE MOAT OF THE KEEP. 265 

not at the same time learned the Raglan password? 
He would go. 

He rose, and, descending the little creaking stair of 
black oak that led from his room to the next story, 
sought his father’s study, where he wrote a letter inform- 
ing him of his intended attempt, and the means to its 
accomplishment that had been already vouchsafed him. 
The rest of his time, after eating his dinner, he spent in 
making overshoes for his mare out of an old buff jerkin. 
As soon as the twilight began to fall, he set out on foot 
for the witch’s cottage. 

When he arrived, he found her expecting him, but 
prepared with no hearty welcome. 

“ I had liefer by much thee had not come so pat upon 
thy promise, Master Heywood. Then I might have 
looked to move thee from thy purpose, for truly I like it 
not. But thou will never bring an old woman into 
trouble, Master Richard?” 

“ Or a young one either, if I can help it, mother Rees,” 
answered Richard. “But come now, thou must trust 
me, and tell me all I want to know.” 

He drew from his pocket paper and pencil, and began 
to put to her question after question as to the courts and 
the various buildings forming them, with their chief 
doors and windows, and ever as she gave him an answer, 
he added its purport to the rough plan he was drawing 
of the place. 

“ Listen to me, master Heywood,” said the old woman 
at length after a long silence, during which he had been 
pondering over his paper. “An’ thou get once into the 
fountain court thou will know where thee is by the 
marble horse that stands in the middle of it. Turn then 
thy back to the horse, with the yellow tower above thee 
upon thy right hand, and thee will be facing the great 
hall. On the other side of the hall is the pitched court 
M 


266 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


with its great gate and double portcullis and drawbridge. 
Nearly at thy back, but to thy right hand, will lie the 
gate to the bowling-green. At which of these gates does 
thee think to lead out thy mare?” 

“An’ I pass at all, mother, it will be on her back, not 
at her head.” 

“Thou wilt not pass, my son. Be counselled. To 
thy mare, thou will but lose thyself.” 

Richard heard her as though he heard her not. 

“At what hour doth the moon rise, mistress Rees?” 
he asked. 

“What would thou with the moon?” she returned. 
“ Is not she the enemy of him who roves for plunder ? 
Shines she not that the thief may be shaken out of the 
earth ?” 

“ I am not thief enough to steal in the dark, mother. 
How shall I tell without her help where I am or whither 
I go?” 

“ She will be half way to the top of her hill by mid- 
night.” 

“ An’ thou speak by the card, then is it time that Mar- 
quis and I were going.” 

“ Here, take thee some fern-seed in thy pouch, that 
thou may walk invisible,” said the old woman. “ If thee 
chance to be an hungred, then eat there of,” she added, 
as she transferred something from her pocket to his. 

She called the dog and opened the chamber door. 
Out came Marquis, walked to Richard, and stood look- 
ing up in his face as if he knew perfectly that his busi- 
ness was to accompany him. Richard bade the old 
woman good night, and stepped from the cottage. 

No sooner was he in the darkness with the dog, than, 
fearing he might lose sight of him, he tied his handker- 
chief round his neck, and fastened to it the thong of his 
riding whip — the sole weapon he had brought with him 


THE MOAT OF THE KEEP. 


267 


r— and so they walked together, Marquis pulling Richard 
on. Ere long the moon rose, and the country dawned 
into the dim creation of the light. 

On and on they trudged, Marquis pulling at his leash 
as if he had been a blind man’s dog, and on and on be- 
side them crept their shadows, flattened out into strange 
distortion upon the road. But when they had come 
within about two miles of Raglan, whether it was that 
the sense of proximity to his mistress grew strong in him, 
or that he scented the Great Mogul, as the horse the 
battle from afar, Marquis began to grow restless, and to 
snuff about on one side of the way. When at length 
they had by a narrow bridge crossed a brook, the dog 
insisted on leaving the road and going down into the 
meadow, to the left. Richard made small resistance, 
and that only for experiment upon the animal’s deter- 
mination. Across field after field his guide led him, 
until, but for the great keep towering dimly up into the 
moonlit sky, he could hardly have even conjectured 
where he was. But he was well satisfied, for, ever as 
they came out of copse or hollow, there was the huge 
thing in the sky, nearer than before. 

At last he was able to descry a short stretch of the 
castle rampart, past which, away to the westward, the 
dog was pulling, along a rough cart-track through a field. 
This he presently found to be a quarry road, and straight 
into the quarry the dog went, pulling eagerly; but 
Richard was compelled to follow with caution, for the 
ground was rough and broken, and the moon cast black 
misleading shadows. Towards the blackest of these the 
dog led, and entered a hollow way. Richard went 
straight after him, guarding his head with his arm, lest 
he might meet a sudden descent of the roof, and length- 
ening his leash to the utmost, that he might have timely 
warning of any descent of the floor. 


268 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


It was a very rough tunnel, the intent of which will 
afterwards appear, forming part of one of Lord Herbert’s 
later contrivances for the safety of the castle; but so 
well had Mr. Salisbury, the surveyor, managed, that not 
one of the men employed upon it had an idea that they 
were doing more than working the quarry for the repair 
of the fortifications. 

From the darkness, and the cautious rate at which he 
had to proceed, holding back the dog who tugged hard 
at the whip, Richard could not even hazard a conjecture 
as to the distance they had advanced, when he heard the 
noise of a small runnel of water which seemed from the 
sound to make abrupt descent from some little height. 
He had gone but a few paces further when the handle of 
the whip received a great upward pull and was left loose 
in his grasp : the dog was away, leaving his handkerchief 
at the end of the thong. So now he had to guide him- 
self, and began to feel about him. He seemed at first to 
have come to the end of the passage, for he could touch 
both sides of it by stretching out his arms, and in front a 
tiny stream of water came down the face of the rough 
rock ; but what then had become of Marquis ? The 
answer seemed plain : the water must come from some- 
where, and doubtless its channel had spare room enough 
for the dog to pass thither. He felt up the rock, and 
found that, at about the height of his head, the water 
came over an obtuse angle. Climbing a foot or two, he 
discovered that the opening whence it issued was large 
enough for him to enter. 

Only one who has at some time passed where length- 
ened creeping was necessary, will know how Richard 
felt, with water under him, pitch-darkness about him', 
and the rock within an inch or two of his body all round. 
By and by the slope became steeper and the ascent more 
difficult. The air grew very close, and he began to fear 


THE MOAT OF THE KEEP. 


269 


he should be stifled. Then came a hot breath, and a 
pair of eyes gleamed a foot or two from his face. Had 
he then followed into the den of the animal by which 
poor Marquis had been so frightfully torn ? But no : it 
was Marquis himself waiting for him ! 

“ Go on, Marquis,” he said, with a sigh of relief. 

The dog obeyed, and in another moment a waft of 
cool air came in. Presently a glimmer of light appeared. 
The opening through which it entered was a little higher 
than his horizontally posed head, and looked alarmingly 
narrow. But as he crept nearer it grew wider, and when 
he came under it he found it large enough to let him 
through. When cautiously he poked up his head, there 
was the huge mass of the keep towering blank above him ! 
On a level with his eyes, the broad lilied waters of the 
moat lay betwixt him and the citadel. 

Marquis had brought him to the one neglected, there- 
fore forgotten and thence undefended spot of the whole 
building. Before the well was sunk in the keep, the 
supply of water to the moat had been far more bountiful, 
and provision for a free overflow was necessary. For 
some reason, probably for the mere sake of facility in the 
construction, the passage for the superfluous water had 
been made larger than needful at the end next the moat. 
About midway to its outlet, however — a mere drain- 
mouth in a swampy hollow in the middle of a field — it 
had narrowed to a third of the compass. But the 
quarriers had cut across it above the point of contrac- 
tion; and no danger of access occurring to lord Herbert 
or Mr. Salisbury, while they found a certain service in 
the tiny waterfall, they had left it as it was. 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 


RAGLAN STABLES. 

T HE passage for the overflow of the water of the 
moat was under the sunk walk which, reaching 
from the gate of the stone court round to the gate of the 
fountain court, inclosed the keep and its moat, looping 
them on as it were to the side of the double quadrangle 
of the castle. The only way out of this passage, at 
whose entrance Richard now found himself, was into the 
moat. As quietly therefore as he could, he got through 
the opening and into the water, amongst the lilies, 
where, much impeded by their tangling roots, which 
caused him many a submergence, but with a moon in 
her second quarter over his head to light him, he swam 
gently along. As he looked up from the water, however, 
to the huge crag-like tower over his head, the soft moon- 
light smoothing the rigor but bringing out all the waste- 
ness of the grim blank, it seemed a hopeless attempt he 
had undertaken. Not the less did he keep his eye on 
the tower-side of the moat, and had not swam far before 
he caught sight of the little stair which, enclosed in one 
of the six small round bastions encircling it, led up from 
the moat to the walk immediately around the citadel. 
The foot of this stair was, strangely enough, one of the 
only two points in the defenses of the moat not absolute- 
ly commanded from either one or the other of the two 
gates of the castle. The top of the stair, however, was 
visible from one extreme point over the western gate, 
and the moment Richard, finding the small thick iron- 
studded door open, put his head out of the bastion, he 


RAGLAN STABLES. 


271 


caught sight of a warder far away, against the moonlit 
sky. All of the castle except the spot where that man 
stood, was hidden by the near bulk of the keep. He 
drew back, and sat down on the top of the stair — to 
think and let the water run from his clothes. When he 
issued, it was again on all-fours. He had, however, only 
to creep an inch or two to the right to be covered by 
one of the angles of the tower. 

But this shelter was merely momentary, for he must 
go round the tower in search of some way to reach the 
courts beyond ; and no sooner had he passed the next 
angle than he found himself within sight of one of the 
towers of the main entrance. Dropping once more on 
his hands and knees he crept slowly along, as close as he 
could squeeze to the root of the wall, and when he 
rounded the next angle, was in the shadow of the keep, 
while he had but to cross the walk to be covered by the 
parapet on the edge of the moat. This he did, and 
having crept round the curve of the next bastion, was 
just beginning to fear lest he should find only a lifted 
drawbridge, and have to take to the water again, when 
he came to the stone bridge. 

It was well for him that Dorothy and Caspar had now 
omitted the setting of their water-trap, otherwise he 
would have entered the fountain court in a manner 
unfavorable to his project. As it was, he got over in 
safety, never ceasing his slow crawl until he found him- 
self in the archway. Here he stood up, straightened his 
limbs, went through a few gymnastics, as silent as ener- 
getic, to send the blood through his chilled veins, and 
the next moment was again on the move. 

Peering from the mouth of the archway, he saw to his 
left the fountain court with the gleaming head of the 
great horse rising out of the sea of shadow into the 
moonlight, and knew where he was. Next he discovered 




ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


close to him on his right an open door into a dim space, 
and knew that he was looking into the great hall. Op- 
posite the door glimmered the large bay window of 
which Mrs. Rees had spoken. 

There was now a point to be ascertained ere he could 
determine at which of the two gates he should attempt 
his exit — a question which, up to the said point, he had 
thoroughly considered on his way. 

The stables opened upon the pitched court, and in 
that court was the main entrance : naturally that was 
the one to be used. But in front of it was a great flight 
of steps, the whole depth of the ditch, with the marble 
gate at the foot of them ; and not knowing the carriage- 
way, he feared both suspicion and loss of time, where a 
single moment might be all that divided failure from 
success. Also at this gate were a double portcullis and 
drawbridge, the working of whose machinery took time, 
and of all things a quick execution was essential, seeing 
that at any moment sleeping suspicion might awake, and 
find enough to keep her so. — At the other gate there 
was but one portcullis and no drawbridge, while from it 
he perfectly knew the way to the brick gate. Clearly 
this was the preferable for his attempt. There was but 
one point to cast in the other scale — namely, that, if old 
Eccles were still the warder of it, there would be danger 
of his recognition in respect both of himself and his 
mare. But, on the other hand, he thought he could turn 
to account his knowledge of the fact that the marquis’s 
room was over it. So here the scale had settled to 
rebound no more — except indeed he should discover any 
difficulty in passing from the stone court in which lay 
the mouth of the stables, to the fountain court in which 
stood the preferable gate. This question he must now 
settle, for once on horseback there must be no delibera- 
tion. 


RAGLAN STABLES. 


273 


One way at least there must be — through the hall: 
the hall must be accessible from both courts. He pulled 
off his shoes, and stepped softly in. Through the high 
window immediately over the huge fire-place, a little 
moonlight fell on the northern gable-wall, turning the 
minstrels’ gallery into an aerial bridge to some strange 
region of loveliness, and in the shadow under it he found 
at once the door he sought, standing open but dark 
under a deep porch. 

Issuing and gliding along by the side of the hall and 
round the great bay window, he came to the stair indi- 
cated by Mrs. Rees, and descending a little way, stood 
and listened : plainly enough to his practiced ear, what 
the old woman had represented as the underground 
passage to the airiest of stables was itself full of horses. 
To go down amongst these in the dark, and in ignorance 
of the construction of the stable, was somewhat perilous; 
but he had not come there to avoid risk. Step by step 
he stole softly down, and, arrived at the bottom, seated 
himself on the last — to wait until his eyes should get so 
far accustomed to the darkness as to distinguish the 
poor difference between the faint dusk sinking down the 
stair and the absolute murk. A little further on, he 
could descry two or three grated openings into the 
fountain court, but by them nothing could enter beyond 
the faintest reflection of moonlight from the windows 
between the grand staircase and the bell tower. 

As soon as his eyes had grown capable of using what 
light there was, which however was scarcely sufficient to 
render him the smallest service, Richard began to whis- 
tle, very softly, a certain tune well known to Lady, one 
he always whistled when he fed or curried her himself. 
He had not got more than half through it, when a low 
drowsy whinny made reply from the depths of the dark- 
ness before him, and the heart of Richard leaped in his 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


274 

bosom for joy. He ceased a moment, then whistled 
again. Again came the response, but this time, although 
still soft and low, free from all the woolliness of sleep. 
Once more he whistled, and once more came the answer, 
Certain at length of the direction, he dropped on his 
hands and knees, and crawled carefully along for a few 
yards, then stopped, whistled again, and listened. After 
a few more calls and responses, he found himself at 
Lady’s heels, which had begun to move restlessly. He 
crept into the stall beside her, spoke to her in a whisper, 
got upon his feet, caressed her, told her to be quiet, and, 
pulling her buff shoes from his pockets, drew them over 
her hoofs, and tied them securely about her pasterns. 
Then with one stroke of his knife he cut her halter, 
hitched the end round her neck, and telling her to follow 
him, walked softly through the stable and up the stair. 
She followed like a cat, though not without some noise, 
to whose echoes Richard’s bosom seemed the beaten 
drum. The moment her back was level, he flung him- 
self upon it, and rode straight through the porch and 
into the hall. 

But here at length he was overtaken by the conse- 
quences of having an ally unequal to the emergency^ 
Marquis, who had doubtless been occupied with his 
friends in the stable yard, came bounding up ‘into the 
court just as Richard threw himself on the back of his 
mare. At the sight of Lady, whom he knew so well, 
with her master on her back, a vision of older and hap- 
pier times, the poor animal forgot himself utterly, rushed 
through the hall like a whirlwind, and burst into a 
tempest of barking in the middle of the fountain court — 
whether to rouse his mistress, or Dut to relieve his own 
heart, matters little to my tale. There was not a mo- 
ment to lose, and Richard rode out of the hall and made 
for the gate. 


CHAPTER XXIX. 


THE APPARITION. 

T HE voice of her lost Marquis, which even in her 
dreams she could attribute to none but him, roused 
Dorothy at once. She sprang from her bed, flew to the 
window, and flung it wide. That same moment, from 
the shadows about the hall-door, came forth a man on 
horseback, and rode along the tiled path to the fountain, 
where never had hoof of horse before trod. Stranger 
still, the tramp sounded far away, and woke no echo in 
the echo-haunted place. A phantom surely — horse and 
man ! As they drew nearer where she stared with wide 
eyes, the head of the rider rose out of the shadow into 
the moonlight, and she recognized the face of Richard — 
very white and still, though not, as she supposed, with 
the whiteness and stillness of a specter, but with the 
concentration of eagerness and watchful resolution. The 
same moment she recognized Lady. She trembled from 
head to foot. What could it mean but that beyond a 
doubt they were both dead, slain in battle, and that 
Richard had come to pay her a last visit ere he left the 
world ? On they came. Her heart swelled up into her 
throat, and the effort to queen it over herself and neither 
shriek nor drop on the floor was like struggling to sup- 
port a falling wall. When the specter reached the 
marble fountain, he gave a little start, drew bridle, and 
seemed to become aware that he had taken a wrong 
path, looked keenly around, and instead of continuing 
his advance towards her window, turned in the direction 


276 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


of the gate. One thing was clear, that whether ghostly 
or mortal, whether already dead or only on the way to 
death, the apparition was regardless of her presence. 
A pang of disappointment shot through her bosom, and 
for the moment quenched her sense of relief from terror. 
With it sank the typhoon of her emotion, and she be- 
came able to note how draggled and soiled his garments 
were, how his hair clung about his temples, and that for 
all accouterment his mare had but a halter. Yet Rich- 
ard sat erect and proud, and Lady stepped like a mare 
full of life and vigor. And there was Marquis, not 
cowering or howling as dogs do in spectral presence, but 
madly bounding and barking as if in uncontrollable ju- 
bilation ! 

The acme of her bewilderment was reached when the 
phantom came under the marquis’s study-window, and 
she heard it call aloud, in a voice which undoubtedly 
came from corporeal throat, and that throat Richard’s, 
ringing of the morning and the sunrise and the wind 
that shakes the wheat — anything rather than of the 
tomb : 

“ Ho, master Eccles !” it cried ; “ when ? when ? Must 
my lord’s business cool while thou rubbest thy sleepy 

eyes awake ? What, I say ! When ? Yes, my lord, I 

will punctually attend to your lordship’s orders. Expect 
me back within the hour.” 

The last words were uttered in a much lower tone, 
with the respect due to him he seemed addressing, but 
quite loud enough to be distinctly heard by Eccles or 
any one else in the court. 

Dorothy leaned from her window, and looked sideways 
to the gate, expecting to see the marquis bending over 
his window-sill, and talking to Richard. But his window 
was close shut, nor was there any light behind it. 

A minute or two passed, during which she heard the 


THE APPARITION. 277 

combined discords of the rising portcullis. Then out 
came Eccles, slow and sleepy. 

“By St. George and St. Patrick !” cried Richard, 
“ why keep’st thou six legs here standing idle ? Is thy 
master’s business nothing to thee ?” 

Eccles looked up at him. He was coming to his 
senses. 

“ Thou rides in strange graith on my lord’s business,” 
he said, as he put the key in the lock. 

“ What is that to thee ? Open the gate. And make 
haste. If it please my lord that I ride thus to escape 
eyes that else might see further than thine, keen as they 
are, master Eccles, it is nothing to thee.” 

The lock clanged, the gate swung open, and Richard 
rode through. 

By this time a process of doubt and reasoning, rapid 
as only thought can be, had produced in the mind of 
Dorothy the conviction that there was something wrong. 
By what authority was Richard riding from Raglan with 
muffled hoofs between midnight and morning ? His 
speech to the marquis was plainly a pretense, and doubt- 
less that to Eccles was equally false. To allow him to 
pass unchallenged would be treason against both her 
host and her king. 

“ Eccles ! Eccles !” she cried, her voice ringing clear 
through the court, “ let not that man pass.” 

“He gave the word, mistress,” said Eccles, in dull 
response. 

“ Stop him, I say,” cried Dorothy again, with energy 
almost frantic, as she heard the gate swing to heavily. 
“Thou shalt be held to account.” 

“ He gave the word. He’s a true man, mistress,” 
returned Eccles in tone of self-justification. “Heard 
you not my lord marquis give him his last orders from 
his window ?” 


278 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


li There was no marquis at the window. Stop him, I 
say.” 

“ He’s gone,” said Eccles quietly, but with awaking 
uneasiness. 

“ Run after him,” Dorothy almost screamed. “ Stop 
him at the gate. It is young Heywood of Redware, one 
of the busiest of the roundheads.” 

Eccles was already running and shouting and whis- 
tling. She heard his feet resounding from the bridge. 
With trembling hands she flung a cloak about her, and 
sped bare-footed down the grand staircase and along the 
north side of the court to the bell-tower, where she 
seized the rope of the alarm-bell, and pulled with all her 
strength. A horrid clangor tore the stillness of the 
night, re-echoed with yelping response from the multi- 
tudinous buildings around. Window after window flew 
open, head after head was popped out — amongst the first 
that of the marquis, shouting to know what was amiss. 
But the question found no answer. The courts began 
to fill. Some said the castle was on fire; others, that 
the wild beasts were all out; others, that Waller and 
Cromwell had scaled the rampart, and were now storm- 
ing the gates ; others, that Eccles had turned traitor 
and admitted the enemy. In a few moments all was 
outcry and confusion. Both courts and the great hall 
were swarming with men and women and children, 
in every possible stage of attire. The main entrance 
was crowded with a tumult of soldiery, and scouts were 
rushing to different stations of outlook, when the cry 
reached them that the western gate was open, the port- 
cullis up, and the guard gone. 

The moment Richard was clear of the portcullis, he 
set off at a sharp trot for the brick gate, and had almost 
reached it when he became aware that he was pursued. 
He had heard the voice of Dorothy as he rode out, and 


THE APPARITION. 


279 


knew to whom he owed it. But yet there was a chance. 
Rousing the porter with such a noisy reveille as drowned 
in his sleepy ears the cries of the warder and those that 
followed him, he gave the watchword, and the huge key 
was just turning in the wards when the clang of the 
alarm-bell suddenly racked the air. The porter stayed 
his hand, and stood listening. 

“ Open the gate,” said Richard in authoritative tone. 

“I will know first, master, ” began the man. 

“Dost not hear the bell?” cried Richard. “How 
long wilt thou endanger the castle by thy dullness?” 

“ I shall know first,” repeated the man deliberately, 
“ what that bell ” 

Ere he could finish the sentence, the butt of Richard’s 
whip had laid him along the threshold of the gate. 
Richard flung himself from his horse, and turned the 
key. But his enemies were now close at hand — Eccles 
and the men of his guard. If the porter had but fallen 
the other way ! Ere he could drag aside his senseless 
body and open the gate, they were upon him with blows 
and curses. But the puritan’s blood was up, and with 
the heavy handle of his whip he had felled one and 
wounded another ere he was himself stretched on the 
ground with a sword-cut in the head. 


CHAPTER XXX . 


RICHARD AND THE MARQUIS. 

VERY few strokes of the brazen-tongued clamorei 



E\. had been enough to wake the whole castle. Doro- 
thy flew back to her chamber, and hurrying on her 
clothes, descended again to the court. It was already 
in full commotion. The western gate stood open, with 
the portcullis beyond it high in the wall, and there she 
took her stand, waiting the return of Eccles and his men. 

Presently lord Charles came through the hall from the 
stone court, and seeing' the gate open, called aloud in 
anger to know what it meant. Receiving no reply, he 
ran with an oath to drop the portcullis. 

“Is there a mutiny amongst the rascals?” he cried. 

“ There is no cause for dread, my lord,” said Dorothy 
from the shadow of the gateway. 

“ How know you that, fair mistress ?” returned lord 
Charles, who knew her voice. “You must not inspire 
us with too much of your spare courage. That would 
be to make us foolhardy.” 

“Indeed, there is nothing to fear, my lord,” persisted 
Dorothy. “ The warder and his men have but this 
moment rushed out after one on horseback, whom they 
had let pass with too little question. They are ten to 
one,” added Dorothy with a shudder, as the sounds of 
the fray came up from below. 

“ If there is then no cause of fear, cousin, why look 
you so pale?” asked lord Charles, for the gleam of a 
torch had fallen on Dorothy’s face. 

“ I think I hear them returning, doubtless with a pris- 


RICHARD AND THE MARQUIS. 


281 


oner,” said Dorothy, and stood with her face turned 
aside, looking anxiously through the gateway and along 
the bridge. She had obeyed her conscience, and had 
now to fight her heart, which unreasonable member of 
the community would insist on hoping that her efforts 
had been foiled. But in a minute more came the gath- 
ering noise of returning footsteps, and presently Lady’s 
head appeared over the crown of the bridge ; then rose 
Eccles, leading her in grim silence ; and next came 
Richard, pale and bleeding, betwixt two men, each hold- 
ing him by an arm ; the rest of the guard crowded 
behind. As they entered the court, Richard caught 
sight of Dorothy, and his face shone into a wan smile, 
to which her rebellious heart responded with a terrible 
pang. 

The voice of lord Charles reached them from the 
other side of the court. 

“ Bring the prisoner to the hall,” it cried. 

Eccles led the mare away, and the rest took Richard 
to the hall, which now began to be lighted up, and was 
soon in a blaze of candles all about the dais. When 
Dorothy entered, it was crowded with household and 
garrison, but the marquis, who was tardy at dressing, 
had not yet appeared. Presently however he walked 
slowly in from the door at the back of the dais, breathing 
hard, and seated himself heavily in the great chair. 
Dorothy placed herself near the door where she could 
see the prisoner. 

Lady Mary entered and seated herself beside her 
father. 

“What meaneth all this tumult ?” the marquis began. 
“ Who rang the alarum-bell ?” 

“I did, my lord,” answered Dorothy in a trembling 
voice. 

“ Thou, mistress Dorothy !” exclaimed the marquis. 


282 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


“ Then I doubt not thou hadst good reason for so doing. 
Prithee what was the reason? Verily it seems thou wast 
sent hither to be the guardian of my house !” 

“ It was not I, my lord, gave the first alarm, but ” 

She hesitated, then added, “my poor Marquis.” 

“ Not so poor for a marquis, cousin Dorothy, as to be 
called the poor marquis. Why dost thou call me poor ?” 

“ My lord, I meant my dog.” 

“ The truth will still lie — between me and thy dog,” 
said the marquis. “ But come npw, instruct me. Who 
is this prisoner, and how comes he here ?” 

“He be young Mr. Heywood of Redware, my lord, 
and a pestilent roundhead,” answered one of his captors. 

“Who knows him?” 

A moment’s silence followed. Then came Dorothy’s 
voice again. 

“I do, my lord.” 

“Tell me then all thou knowest from the beginning, 
cousin,” said the marquis. 

“ I was roused by the barking of my dog,” Dorothy 
began. 

“ How came he hither again ?” 

“ My lord, I know not.” 

“ ’Tis passing strange. See to it, lord Charles. Go 
on, mistress Dorothy.” 

“I heard my dog bark in the court, my lord, and 
looking from my window saw Mr. Heywood riding 
through on horseback. Ere I could recover from my 
astonishment, he had passed the gate, and then I rang 
the alarm bell,” said Dorothy briefly. 

“Who opened the gate for him?” 

“ I did, my lord,” said Eccles. “ He made me believe 
he was talking to your lordship at the study window.” 

“Ha! a cunning fox!” said the marquis. “And 
then ?” 


RICHARD AND THE MARQUIS. 


283 


“And then mistress Dorothy fell out upon me ” 

“Let thy tongue wag civilly, Eccles.” 

“He speaks true, my lord,” said Dorothy. “I did 
fall out upon him, for he was but half awake, and I knew 
not what mischief might be at hand.” 

“ Eccles is obliged to you, cousin. — And so the lady 
brought you to your senses in time to catch him?” 

“ Yes, my lord.” 

“ How comes he wounded ? He was but one to a 
score.” 

“ My lord, he would else have killed us all.” 

“ He was armed then ?” 

Eccles was silent. 

“Was he armed?” repeated the marquis. 

“ He had a heavy whip, my lord.” 

“ Hm!” said the marquis, and turned to the prisoner. 

“Is thy name Hey wood, sirrah?” he asked. 

“ My lord, if you treat me as a clown, you shall have 
but clown’s manners of me : I will not answer.” 

“ ’Fore heaven!” exclaimed the marquis, “our squires 
would rule the roast.” 

“ He that doth right, marquis or squire, will one day 
rule, my lord,” said Richard. 

“’Tis well said,” returned the marquis. “I ask your 
pardon, Mr. Heywood. In times like these a man must 
be excused for occasionally dropping his manners.” 

“ Assuredly, my lord, when he stoops to recover them 
so gracefully as doth the marquis of Worcester.” 

“ What then would'st thou in my house at midnight, 
Mr. Heywood ?” asked the marquis courteously. 

“Nothing save mine own, my lord. I came but to 
look for a stolen mare.” 

“What! thou takest Raglan for a den of thieves?” 

“I found the mare in your lordship’s stable.” 

“ How then came the mare in my stable?” 


284 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


“That is not a question for me to answer, my lord.” 

“ Doubtless thou didst lose her in battle against thy 
sovereign.” 

“She was in Redware stable last night, my lord.” 

“Which of you, knaves, stole the gentleman’s mare?” 
cried the marquis. — “But Mr. Heywood, there can be 
no theft upon a rebel. He is by nature an outlaw, and 
his life and goods forfeit to the king.” 

“ He will hardly yield the point, my lord. So long as 
Might, the sword, is in the hand of Right, the ” 

“ Of Right, the roundhead, I suppose you mean,” inter- 
rupted the marquis. “ — Who carried off Mr. Heywood’s 
mare?” he repeated, rising, and looking abroad on the 
crowd. 

“Tom Fool,” answered a voice from the obscure dis- 
tance. 

A buzz of suppressed laughter followed, which as 
instantly ceased, for the marquis looked angrily around. 

“Stand forth, Tom Fool,” he said. 

Through the crowd came Tom, and stood before the 
dais, looking frightened and sheepish. 

“Sure I am, Tom, thou didst never go to steal a mare 
of thine own motion : who went with thee ?” said the 
marquis. 

“Mr. Scudamore, my lord,” answered Tom. 

“Ha, Rowland! Art thou there?” cried his lord- 
ship. 

“ I gave him fair warning two years ago, my lord, and 
the king wants horses,” said Scudamore cunningly. 

“Rowland, I like not such warfare. — Yet can the 
roundheads say naught against it, who would filch king- 
dom from king and church from bishops,” said the mar- 
quis, turning again to Heywood. 

“ As they from the pope, my lord,” rejoined Richard. 

“ True,” answered the marquis; “but the bishops are 


RICHARD AND THE MARQUIS. 285 

the fairer thieves, and may one day be brought to reason 
and restitution.” 

“ As I trust your lordship will in respect of my mare.” 

“ Nay, that can hardly be. She shall to Gloucester to 
the king. I would not have sent to Redware to fetch 
her, but finding thee and her in my house at midnight, it 
would be plain treason to set such enemies at liberty. 
What ! hast thou fought against his majesty ? Thou art 
scored like an old buckler !” 

Richard had started on his adventure very thinly clad, 
for he had expected to find all possible freedom of 
muscle necessary, and indeed could not in his buff coat 
have entered the castle. In the scuffle at the gate, his 
garment had been torn open, and the eye of the marquis 
had fallen on the scar of a great wound on his chest, 
barely healed. 

“What age art thou?” he went on, finding Richard 
made no answer. 

“ One and twenty, my lord — almost.” 

“And what wilt thou be by the time thou art one and 
thirty, an’ I let thee go ?” said the marquis thoughtfully. 

“ Dust and ashes, my lord, most likely. Faith, I care 
not.” 

As he spoke he glanced at Dorothy, but she was look- 
ing on the ground. 

“Nay, nay!” said the marquis feelingly. “These are 
but wild and hurling words for a fine young fellow like 
thee. Long ere thou be a man, the king will have his 
own again, and all will be well. — Come, promise me thou 
wilt never more bear arms against his majesty, and I 
will set thee and thy mare at liberty the moment thou 
shalt have eaten thy breakfast.” 

“ Not to save ten lives, my lord, would I give such a 
promise.” 

“Roundhead hypocrite!” cried the marquis, frowning 


286 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


to hide the gleam of satisfaction he felt breaking from 
his eyes. “ What will thy father say when he hears thou 
liest deep in Raglan dungeon?” 

“ He will thank heaven that I lie there a free man 
instead of walking abroad a slave,” answered Richard. 

“’Fore heaven!” said the marquis, and was silent for 
a moment. “Owest thou then thy king nothing , boy?” 
he resumed. 

“ I owe the truth everything,” answered Richard. 

“The truth!” echoed the marquis. 

“ Now speaks my lord Worcester like my lord Pilate,” 
said Richard. 

“ Hold thy peace, boy,” returned the marquis sternly. 
“ Thy godly parents have ill taught thee thy manners. 
How knowest thou what was in my thought when I did 
but repeat after thee the sacred word thou didst mis- 
use?” 

“ My lord, I was wrong and I beg your lordship’s 
pardon. But an’ your lordship were standing here with 
your head half beaten in, and your clothes ” 

Here Richard bethought himself, and was silent. 

“Tell me then how gat’st thou in, lunatic,” said the 
marquis, not unkindly, “ and thou shalt straight to bed.” 

“ My lord,” returned Richard, “ you have taken my 
mare, and taken my liberty, but the devil is in it if you 
take my secret.” 

“ I would thy mare had been poisoned ere she drew 
thee hither on such a fool’s errand! I want neither 
thee nor thy mare, and yet I may not let you go !” 

“A moment more, and it had been an exploit, and no 
fool’s errand, my lord.” 

“ Then the fool’s cap would have been thine, Eccles. 
How earnest thou to let him out ? Thou a warder, and 
ope gate and up portcullis ’twixt waking and sleeping!” 

“Had he wanted in, my lord, it would have been 


RICHARD AND THE MARQUIS . 287 

different,” said Eccles. “ But he only wanted out, and 
gave the watchword.” 

“ Where got’st thou the watchword, Mr. Heywood ?” 

“ I will tell thee what I gave for it, my lord. More I 
will not.” 

“What gavest thou then ?” 

“ My word that I would work neither thee nor thine 
any hurt withal, my lord.” 

“Then there are traitors within my gates!” cried the 
marquis. 

“Truly, that I know not, my lord,” answered Richard. 

“Prithee tell me how thou gat thee into my house, 
Mr. Heywood. It were but neighborly.” 

“It were but neighborly, my lord, to hang young 
Scudamore and Tom Fool for thieves.” 

“ Tell me how thou gat hold of the watchword, good boy, 
and I will set thee free, and give thee thy mare again.” 

“I will not, my lord.” 

“Then the devil take thee!” said the marquis, rising. 

The same moment Richard reeled, and but for the 
men about him, would have fallen heavily. 

Dorothy darted forward, but could not come near him 
for the crowd. 

“ My lord Charles,” cried the marquis, “ see the poor 
fellow taken care of. Let him sleep, and perchance on 
the morrow he will listen to reason. Mistress Watson 
will see to his hurts. I would to God he were on our 
side ! I like him well.” 

The men took him up and followed lord Charles to 
the housekeeper’s apartment, where they laid him on a 
bed in a little turret, and left him, still insensible, to her 
care, with injunction to turn the key in the lock if she 
went from the chamber but for a moment. “ For who 
can tell,” thought lord Charles, greatly perplexed, “but 
as he came he may go ?” 


288 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


Some of the household had followed them, and several 
of the women would gladly have stayed, but Mrs. Watson 
sent all away. Gradually the crowd dispersed. The 
tumult ceased. The household retired. The castle 
grew still, and most of its inhabitants fell asleep again. 

“A damned hot-livered roundhead coxcomb!” said 
lord Worcester to himself, pacing his room. “These 
pelting cockerel squires and yeomen nowadays go strut- 
ting and crowing as if all the yard were theirs ! We 
shall see how far this heat will carry the rogue ! I doubt 
not the boy would tell everything rather than see his 
mare whipped. — He’s a fine fellow, and it were a thou- 
sand pities he turned coward and gave in. But the 
affair is not mine: it is the king’s majesty’s. Would to 
God the rascal were of our side ! He’s the right old 
English breed. A few such were very welcome, if only 
to show some of our dainty young lordings of yesterday 
what breed can do. But an ass-foal it is ! To run his 
neck into a halter, and set honest people in mortal 
doubt whether to pull the end or no ! How on earth 
could he ever dream of carrying off a horse out of the 
very courts of Raglan castle ! And yet, by saint George ! 
he would have done it too, but for that brave wench of a 
Vaughan ! What a couple the two would make ! They’d 
give us a race of Arthurs and Orlandos between them. 
God be praised there are such left in England ! And 
yet the rogue is but a pestilent roundhead — the more’s 
the pity ! — Those coward rascals need never have mauled 
him like that. Yet had the blow gone a little deeper, it 
had been a mighty gain to our side. Out he shall not 
go till the war be over ! It would be downright treason.” 

So ran the thoughts of the marquis as he paced his 
chamber. But at length he lay down once more, and 
sought refuge in sleep. 


CHAPTER XXXI. 


THE SLEEPLESS. 

T HERE were more than the marquis left awake and 
thinking ; amongst the rest one who ought to have 
been asleep, for the thoughts that kept her awake were 
evil thoughts. 

Amanda Serafina Fuller was a twig or leaf upon one 
of many decaying branches which yet drew what life 
they had from an ancient genealogical tree. Property 
gone l but the sense of high birth swollen to a vice, the 
one thought in her mother’s mind, ever since she grew 
capable of looking upon the social world in its relation 
to herself, had been how, with stinted resources, to make 
the false impression of plentiful ease. For one of the 
most disappointing things in high descent is that the 
descent is occasionally into depths of meanness. Some 
who are proudest of their lineage, instead of finding 
therein a spur to nobility of thought and action, find in 
it only a necessity for prostrating themselves with the 
more abject humiliation at the footstool of Mammon, to 
be admitted into the penetralia of which foul god’s 
favors, they will hasten to mingle the blood of their pure 
descent with that of the very kennels, yellow with the gold 
to which a noble man, if poor as Jesus himself, would 
loathe to be indebted for a meal. In “ the high coun- 
tries” there will be a finding of levels more appalling 
than strange. 

Hence Amanda had been born and brought up in 
falsehood, had been all her life witness to a straining 

N 


290 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


after the untrue so energetic as to assume the appearance 
of conscience ; while such was the tenor and spirit of the 
remarks she was constantly hearing, that she grew up 
with the ingrained undisputed idea that she and her 
mother, whom she had only known as a widow, had been 
wronged, spoiled indeed of their lawful rights, by a 
combination of their rich relatives; whereas in truth 
they had been the objects of very considerable generosi- 
ty, which they resented the more that it had been chiefly 
exercised by such of the family as could least easily 
afford it, yet accepted in their hearts, if not in their 
words, as their natural right. The intercession through 
which Amanda had been received into lady Margaret’s 
household, was the contribution towards their mainten- 
ance of one of their richer connections : the marquis 
himself, although distantly related, not having previously 
been aware of their existence. 

But Amanda felt degraded by her position, and was 
unaware that to herself alone she owed the degradation : 
she had not yet learned that the only service which can 
degrade is that which is unwillingly rendered. To be 
paid for such, is degradation in its very essence. Every 
one who grumbles at his position as degrading, yet ac- 
cepts the wages thereof, brands himself a slave. 

The evil tendencies which she had inherited, had then 
been nourished in her from her very birth — chief of 
these envy, and a strong tendency to dislike. Mean 
herself, she was full of suspicions with regard to others, 
and found much pleasure in penetrating what she took 
to be disguise, and laying bare the despicable motives 
which her own character enabled her either to discover 
or imagine, and which, in other people, she hated. Mod- 
erately good people have no idea of the vileness of which 
their own nature is capable, or which has been developed 
in not a few who pass as respectable persons, and have 


THE SLEEPLESS. 


291 


not yet been accused either of theft or poisoning. Such 
as St. Paul alone can fully understand the abyss of moral 
misery from which the indwelling spirit of God has 
raised them. 

The one redeeming element in Amanda was her love 
to her mother, but inasmuch as it was isolated and self- 
reflected, their mutual attachment partook of the nature 
of a cultivated selfishness, and had lost much of its 
primal grace. The remaining chance for such a woman, 
so to speak, seems — that she should either fall in love 
with a worthy man, if that be still possible to her, or, by 
her own conduct, be brought into dismal and incontro- 
vertible disgrace. 

She had stood in the hall within a few yards of Doro- 
thy, and had intently watched her face all the time 
Richard was before the marquis. But not because she 
watched the field of their play was Amanda able to read 
the heart whence ascended those strangely alternating 
lights and shadows. She had, by her own confession, 
conceived a strong dislike to Dorothy the moment she 
saw her, and without love there can be no understanding. 
Hate will sharpen observation to the point of microscopic 
vision, affording opportunity for many a shrewd guess, 
and revealing facts for the construction of the cleverest 
and falsest theories, but will leave the observer as blind 
as any bat to the scope of the whole, or the meaning of 
the parts which can be understood only from the whole ; 
for love alone can interpret. 

As she gazed on the signs of conflicting emotion in 
Dorothy’s changes of color and expression, Amanda 
came quickly enough to the conclusion that nothing 
would account for them but the assumption that the sly 
puritanical minx was in love with the handsome young 
roundhead. How else could the deathly pallor of her 
countenance while she fixed her eyes wide and unmoving 


292 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


upon his face, and the flush that ever and anon swept 
its red shadow over the pallor as she cast them on the 
ground at some brave word from the lips of the canting 
psalm-singer, be in the least intelligible? Then came 
the difficulty: how in that case was her share in his 
capture to be explained ? But here Amanda felt herself 
in her own province, and before the marquis rose had 
constructed a very clever theory, in which exercise of 
ingenuity, however, unluckily for its truth, she had 
taken for granted that Dorothy’s nature corresponded to 
her own, and reasoned freely from the character of the 
one to the conduct of the other. This was her theory : 
Dorothy had expected Richard, and contrived his ad- 
mission. His presence betrayed by the mastiff, and his 
departure challenged by the warder, she had flown in- 
stantly to the alarm bell, to screen herself in any case, 
and to secure the chance, if he should be taken, of 
liberating him without suspicion under cover of the 
credit of his capture. The theory was a bold one, but 
then it accounted for all the points — amongst the rest, 
how he had got the password and why he would not tell 
— and was indeed in the fineness of its invention equally 
worthy of both the heart and the intellect of the theo- 
rist. 

Nor were mistress Fuller’s resolves behind her conclu- 
sions in merit : of all times since first she had learned to 
mistrust her, this night must Dorothy be watched ; and 
it was with a gush of exultation over her own acuteness 
that she saw her follow the men who bore Richard from 
the hall. 

If Dorothy knew more of her own feelings than she 
who watched her, she was far less confident that she 
understood them. Indeed she found them strangely 
complicated, and as difficult to control as to understand, 
while she stood gazing on the youth who through her 


THE SLEEPLESS. 


293 


found himself helpless and wounded in the hands of his 
enemies. He was all in the wrong, no doubt — a rebel 
against his king, and an apostate from the church of his 
country ; but he was the same Richard with whom she 
had played all her childhood, whom her mother had 
loved, and between whom and herself had never fallen 
shadow before that cast by the sudden outblaze of the 
star of childish preference into the sun of youthful love. 
And was it not when the very mother of shadows, the 
blackness of darkness itself, swept between them and 
separated them for ever, that first she knew how much 
she had loved him? What if not with the love that 
could listen entranced to its own echo ! — love of child 
or love of maiden, Dorothy never asked herself which it 
had been, or which it was now. She was not given to 
self-dissection. The cruel fingers of analysis had never 
pulled her flower to pieces, had never rubbed the bloom 
from the sun-dyed glow of her feelings. But now she 
could not help the vaporous rise of a question : all was 
over, for Richard had taken the path of presumption, 
rebellion, and violence — how then came it that her heart 
beat with such a strange delight at every answer he made 
to the expostulations or enticements of the marquis? 
How was it that his approval of the intruder, ‘not the 
less evident that it was unspoken, made her heart swell 
with pride and satisfaction, causing her to forget the 
rude rebellion housed within the form whose youth 
alone prevented it from looking grand in her eyes ? 

For the moment, her heart had the better of — her 
conscience, shall I say? Yes, of that part of her con- 
science, I will allow, which had grown weak by the 
wandering of its roots into the poor soil of opinion. In 
the delight which the manliness of the young fanatic 
awoke in her, she even forgot the dull pain which had 
been gnawing at her heart ever since first she saw the 


294 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


blood streaming down his face as he passed her in the 
gateway. But when at length he fell fainting in the arms 
of his captors, and the fear that she had slain him 
writhed sickening through her heart, it was with a grim 
struggle indeed that she kept silent and conscious. The 
voice of the marquis, committing him to the care of Mrs. 
Watson instead of the rough ministrations of the guard, 
came with the power of a welcome restorative, and she 
hastened after his bearers to satisfy herself that the 
housekeeper was made understand that he was carried 
to her at the marquis’s behest. She then retired to her 
own chamber, passing in the corridor Amanda, whose 
room was in the same quarter, with a salute careless from 
weariness and preoccupation. 

The moment her head was on her pillow the great 
fight began — on that only battle-field of which all others 
are but outer types and pictures, upon which the thoughts 
of the same spirit are the combatants, accusing and 
excusing one another. 

She had done her duty, but what a remorseless thing 
that Duty was ! She did not, she could not, repent that 
she had done it, but her heart would complain that she 
had had it to do. To her as to Hamlet, it was a cursed 
spite. She had not yet learned the mystery of her rela- 
tion to the Eternal, whose nature in his children it is that 
first shows itself in the feeling of duty. Her religion had 
not as yet been shaken, to test whether it was of the things 
that remain, or of those that pass. It is easy for a simple 
nature to hold by what it has been taught, so long as 
out of that faith springs no demand of bitter obedience ; 
but when the very hiding place of life begins to be laid 
bare under the scalpel of the law, when the heart must 
forego its love, when conscience seems at war with kind- 
ness, and duty at strife with reason, then most good 
people, let their devotion to what they call their religion 


THE SLEEPLESS. 


295 


be what it may, prove themselves, although generally 
without recognizing the fact, very much of pagans after 
all. And good reason why! For are they not devoted 
to their church or their religion tenfold more than to the 
living Love, the father of their spirits ? and what else is 
that, be the- church or the religion what it will, but 
paganism ? Gentle and strong at once as Dorothy was, 
she was not yet capable of knowing that, however like it 
may look to a hardship, no duty can be other than a 
privilege. Nor was it any wonder if she did not per- 
ceive that she was already rewarded for the doing of the 
painful task at the memory of which her heart ached and 
rebelled, by the fresh outburst in that same troubled 
heart of the half-choked spring of her love to the play- 
mate of her childhood. Had it fallen, as she would 
have judged so much fairer, to some one else of the 
many in the populous place to defeat Richard’s intent 
and secure his person, she would have both suffered and 
loved less. The love, I repeat, was the reward of the 
duty done. 

For a long time she tossed sleepless, for what she had 
just passed through had so thoroughly possessed her 
imagination that, ever as her wearied brain was sinking 
under the waves of sleep, up rose the face of Richard 
from its depths, deathlike, with matted curls and blood- 
stained brow, and drove her again ashore on the rocks 
of wakefulness. By and by the form of her suffering 
changed, and then instead of the face of Richard it was 
his voice, ever as she reached the point of oblivion call- 
ing aloud for help in a tone of mingled entreaty and 
reproach, until at last she could no longer resist the 
impression that she was warned to go and save him from 
some impending evil. This once admitted, not for a 
moment would she delay response. She rose, threw on 
a dressing-gown, and set out in the dim light of the 


296 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


breaking day to find again the room into which she had 
seen him carried. 

There was yet another in the house who could not 
sleep, and that was Tom Fool. He had a strong suspi- 
cion that Richard had learned the watchword from his 
mother, who, like most people desirous of a reputation 
for superior knowledge, was always looking out for 
scraps and orts of peculiar information. In such per- 
sons an imagination after its kind has considerable play, 
and when mother Rees had succeeded, without much 
difficulty on her own, or sense of risk on her son’s part, 
in drawing from him the watchword of the week, she was 
aware in herself of a huge accession of importance, she 
felt as if she had been intrusted with the keys of the 
main entrance, and trod her clay floor as if the fate of 
Raglan was hid in her bosom, and the great pile rested 
in safety under the shadow of her wings. But her imag- 
ined gain was likely to prove her son’s loss; for, as he 
reasoned with himself, would Mr. Heywood, now that he 
knew him for the thief of his mare, persist, upon reflec- 
tion, in refusing to betray his mother ? If not, then the 
fault would at once be traced to him, with the result, at 
the very least, of disgraceful expulsion from the mar- 
quis’s service. Almost any other risk would be pref- 
erable. 

But he had yet another ground for uneasiness. He 
knew well his mother’s attachment to young Mr. Hey- 
wood, and had taken care she should have no suspicion 
of the way he was going after leaving her the night he 
told her the watchword ; for such was his belief in her 
possession of supernatural powers, that he feared the 
punishment she would certainly inflict for the wrong 
done to Richard, should it come to her knowledge, even 
more than the wrath of the marquis. For both of these 
weighty reasons therefore he must try what could be 


THE SLEEPLESS. 


297 


done to strengthen Richard in his silence, and was pre- 
pared with an offer, or promise at least, of assistance in 
making his escape. 

As soon as the house was once more quiet, he got up, 
and, thoroughly acquainted with the “ crenkles ” of it, 
took his way through dusk and dark, through narrow 
passage and wide chamber, without encountering the 
slightest risk of being heard or seen, until at last he 
stood, breathless with anxiety and terror, at the door of 
the turret-chamber, and laid his ear against it. 


CHAPTER XXXII. 


THE TURRET CHAMBER. 

HEN Mrs. Watson had, as gently as if she had 



vv been his mother, bound up Richard’s wounded 
head, she gave him a composing draught, and sat down 
by his bedside. But as soon as she saw it begin to take 
effect, she withdrew, in the certainty that he would not 
move for some hours at least. Although he did fall 
asleep, however, Richard’s mind was too restless and 
anxious to yield itself to the natural influence of the 
potion. He had given his word to his father that he 
would ride on the morrow ; the morrow had come, and 
here he was ! Hence the condition which the drug 
superinduced was rather that of dreaming than sleep, the 
more valuable element, repose, havirxg little place in the 


result. 


The key was in the lock, and Tom Fool as he listened 
softly turned it, then lifted the latch, peeped in, and 
entered. Richard started to his elbow, and stared wildly 
about him. Tom made him an anxious sign, and, 
fevered as he was and but half awake, Richard, whether 
he understood it or not, anyhow kept silence, while Tom 
approached the bed, and began to talk rapidly in a low 
voice, trembling with apprehension. It was some time, 
however, before Richard began to comprehend even a 
fragment here and there of what he was saying. When 
at length he had gathered this much, that his visitor was 
running no small risk in coming to him, and was in 
mortal dread of discovery, he needed but the disclosure 
of who he was, which presently followed, to spring upon 


THE TURRET CHAMBER. 


299 


him and seize him by the throat with a gripe that ren- 
dered it impossible for him to cry out, had he been so 
minded. 

“Master, master!” he gurgled, “let me go. I will 
swear any oath you please ” 

“And break it any moment you please,” returned 
Richard through his set teeth, and caught with his other 
hand the coverlid, dragged it from the bed, and twisting 
it first round his face, flung the remainder about his 
body; then, threatening to knock his brains out if he 
made the least noise, proceeded to tie him up in it with 
his garters and its own corners. No sound escaped 
poor Tom beyond a continuous mumbled entreaty 
through its folds. Richard laid him on the floor, pulled 
all the bedding upon the top of him, and gliding out 
closed the door, but, to Tom’s unspeakable relief, as his 
ears, agonizedly listening, assured him, did not lock it 
behind him. 

Tom’s sole anxiety was now to get back to his garret 
unseen, and nothing was farther from his thoughts than 
giving the alarm. The moment Richard was out of 
hearing — out of sight he had been for some stifling min- 
utes — he devoted his energies to getting clear of his 
entanglement, which he did not find very difficult ; then 
stepping softly from the chamber, he crept with a heavy 
heart back as he had come through a labyrinth of by- 
ways. 

About half an hour after, Dorothy came gliding 
through the house, making a long circuit of corridors. 
Gladly would she have avoided passing Amanda’s door, 
and involuntarily held her breath as she approached it, 
stepping as lightly as a thief. But alas! nothing save 
incorporeity could have availed her. The moment she 
had passed, out peeped Amanda and crept after her 
barefooted, saw her to her joy enter the chamber and 


300 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


close the door behind her, then “like a tiger of the 
wood,” made one noiseless bound, turned the key, and 
sped back to her own chamber — with the feeling of Mark 
Antony when he said, “Now let it work!” 

Dorothy was startled by a slight click, but concluded 
at once that it was nothing but a further fall of the latch, 
and was glad it was no louder. The same moment she 
saw, by the dim rushlight, the signs of struggle which 
the room presented, and discovered that Richard was 
gone. Her first emotion was an undefined agony : they 
had murdered him, or carried him off to a dungeon ! 
There were the bedclothes in a tumbled heap upon the 
floor! And — yes — it was blood with which they were 
marked! Sickening at the thought, and forgetting all 
about her own situation, she sank on the chair by the 
bedside. 

Knowing the castle as she did, a very little reflection 
convinced her that if he had met with violence it must 
have been in attempting to escape ; and if he had made 
the attempt, might he not have succeeded ? There had 
certainly been no fresh alarm given. But upon this 
consoling supposition followed instantly the pang of the 
question: what was now required of her? The same 
hard thing as before ? Ought she not again to give the 
alarm that the poor wounded boy might be recaptured ? 
Alas ! had not evil enough already befallen him at her 
hand? And if she did — horrible thought! — what ac- 
count could she give this time of her discovery ? What 
indeed but the truth ? And to what vile comments 
would not the confession of her secret visit in the first 
gray of the dawn to the chamber of the prisoner expose 
her? Would it not naturally rouse such suspicion as 
any modest woman must shudder to face, if but for the 
one moment between utterance and refutation ? And 
what refutation could there be for her, so long as the 


THE TURRET CHAMBER. 


aoi 


fact remained? If he had escaped, the alarm would 
serve no good end, and her shame could be spared; but 
he might be hiding somewhere about the castle, and she 
must choose between treachery to the marquis — was it ? 
— on the one hand, and renewed hurt, wrong, perhaps, 
to Richard, coupled with the bitterest disgrace to herself, 
on the other. To weigh such a question impartially was 
impossible; for in the one alternative no hurt would 
befall the marquis, while from the other her very soul 
recoiled sickening. Thus tortured, she sat motionless 
in the very den of the dragon, the one moment vainly 
endeavoring to rouse up her courage and look her duty 
in the face that she might know with certainty what it 
was; the next, feeling her whole nature rise rebellious 
against the fate that demanded such a sacrifice. Ought 
she to be thus punished for an intent of the purest 
humanity ? 

There came a lull, and with the lull a sense of her 
position : she sat in the very jaws of slander ! Any 
moment Mrs. Watson or another might enter and find 
her there, and what then more natural or irrefutable 
than the accusation of having liberated him? She 
sprang to her feet, and darted to the door. It was 
locked ! 

Her first thought was relief : she had no longer to 
decide ; her second, that she was a prisoner — till, horror 
of horrors ! the soldiers of the guard came to seek Rich- 
ard and found her, or stern Mrs. Watson appeared, grim 
as one of the Fates; or, perhaps, if Richard had been 
carried away, until she was compelled by hunger and 
misery to call aloud for release. But no! she would 
rather die. Now in this case, now in that, her thoughts 
pursued the horrible possibilities, one or other of which 
was inevitable, through all the windings of the torture of 
anticipation, until for a time she must have lost con- 


302 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


sciousness, for she had no recollection of falling where 
she found herself — on the heap in the middle of the 
floor. The gray heartless dawn had begun to peer in 
through the dull green glass that closed the one loop- 
hole. It grew and grew, and its growth was the approach 
of the grinning demon of shame. The nearest a man 
can arrive to the knowledge of such feelings as hers is 
the conviction that he never can comprehend them. 
The cruel light seemed gathering its strength to publish 
her shame to the universe. Blameless as she was, she 
would have gladly accepted death in escape from the 
misery that every moment grew nearer. Now and then 
a faint glimmer of comfort reached her in the thought 
that at least the escape of Richard, if he had escaped, 
was thus ensured, and that without any blame to her. 
And perhaps Mrs. Watson would be merciful — only she 
too had her obligations, and as housekeeper was severely 
responsible. And even if she should prove pitiful, there 
was the locking of the door ! It followed so quickly, 
that some one must have seen her enter, and wittingly 
snared her, believing, most likely, that she was not alone 
in the chamber. 

The terrible bolt at length slid back in the lock, 
gently, yet with tearing sound ; Mrs. Watson entered, 
stood, stared. Before her sat Dorothy by the side of the 
bedstead, in her dressing-gown, her hair about her neck, 
her face like the moon at sunrise, and her eyelids red 
and swollen with weeping. She stood speechless, staring 
first at the disconsolate maiden, and then at the disorder 
of the room. The prisoner was nowhere. What her 
thoughts were, I must only imagine. That she should 
stare and be bewildered, finding Dorothy where she had 
left Richard, was at least natural. 

The moment Dorothy found herself face to face with 
her doom, her presence of mind returned. The blood 


THE TURRET CHAMBER. 


303 


rushed from her heart to her brain. She rose, and ere 
the astonished matron, who stood before her erect, high- 
nosed, and open-mouthed like Michael Angelo’s Clotho, 
could find utterance, said, 

“ Mistress Watson, I swear to you by the soul of my 
mother, that although all seeming is against me, ” 

“ Where is the young rebel ?” interrupted Mrs. Watson 
sternly. 

“I know not,” answered Dorothy. “When first I 
entered the chamber, he had already gone.” 

“And what then hadst thou to do entering it?” asked 
the housekeeper, in a tone that did Dorothy good by 
angering her. 

Mrs. Watson was a kind soul in reality, but few na- 
tures can resist the debasing influence of a sudden sense 
of superiority. Besides, was not the young gentlewoman 
in great wrong, and therefore before her must she not 
personify an awful Purity? 

“ That I will tell to none but my lord marquis,” an- 
swered Dorothy, with sudden resolve. 

“Oh, by all means, mistress! but an’ thou think to 
lead him by the nose while I be in Raglan, ” 

“ Shall I inform his lordship in what high opinion his 
housekeeper holds him?” said Dorothy. “It seems to 
me he will hardly savor it.” 

“ It would be an ill turn to do me, but my lord mar- 
quis did never heed a tale-bearer.” 

“ Then will he not heed the tale thou wouldst yield 
him concerning me.” 

“What tale should I yield him but that I find — thee 
here and the prisoner gone ?” 

“ The tale I read in thy face and thy voice. Thou 
lookest and talkest as if I were a false woman.” 

“Verily to my eyes the thing looketh ill.” 

“ It would look ill to any eyes, and therefore I need 


304 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


kind eyes to read, and just ears to hear my tale. I tell 
thee this is a matter for my lord, and if thou spread any 
report in the castle ere his lordship hear it, whatever evil 
springs therefrom it will lie at thy door.” 

“ My life ! what dost take me for, mistress Dorothy ? 
My age and holding deserves some consideration at thy 
hands ! Am I one to go tattling about the courts for- 
sooth ?” 

“ Pardon me, madam, but a maiden’s good name may 
be as precious to Dorothy Vaughan as a matron’s re- 
spectability to mistress Watson. An’ you had left me 
with that look on your face, and had but spoken my 
name to it, some one would have guessed ten times 
more than you know — or I either for that gear.” 

“ I must tell the truth,” said Mrs. Watson, relenting a 
little. 

“Thou must, or I will tell it for thee — but to the 
marquis. Thou shalt be there to hear, and if, after that, 
thou tell it to another, then hast thou no mother’s heart 
in thee.” 

Dorothy gave way at last, and burst into tears. Mrs. 
Watson was touched. 

“Nay, child, I would do thee no wrong,” she rejoined. 
“ Get thee to bed. I must rouse the guard to go look 
for the prisoner, but I will say nothing of thee to any 
but my lord marquis. When he is dressed and in his 
study, I will come for thee myself.” 

Dorothy thanked her warmly, and betook herself to 
her chamber, considerably relieved. 


CHAPTER XXXIII. 


JUDGE GOUT. 

D OROTHY had hardly reached her room when the 
castle was once more astir. The rush of the guard 
across the stone court, the clang of opening lattices, and 
the voices that called from outshot heads, again filled 
her ears, but she never once peeped from her window. 
A moment, and the news was all over the castle that the 
prisoner had escaped. 

Lord Charles went at once to his father’s room. The 
old man woke instantly. He had but just laid his hand 
on his mane, not mounted the shadowy steed, and was 
ill pleased to be already, and the second time, startled 
back to conscious weariness. When he heard the bad 
tidings he was silent for a few moments. 

“ I would Herbert were at home, Charles, to stop this 
rat-hole for me,” he said at length. “ Let the roundhead 
go — I care not. I had but half a right to hold him, and 
he deserves his freedom. But what a governor art thou, 
my lord! Prithee, dost know the rents in thine own 
hose, who knowest not when thy gingerbread bulwarks 
gape ? Find me out this rat-hole, I say, or I will depose 
thee and send for thy brother John, whom the king can 
ill spare.” 

“ Have patience with me, father,” said lord Charles 
gently. “Iam more ashamed than thou art angry.” 

“ Thou know’st I did but jest, my son. But in truth 
an’ thou find it not I will send for lord Herbert. If he 
find what thou canst not, that will be no disgrace to thee. 
But find it we must,” 


306 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


“Think you not, my lord, it were best set mistress 
Dorothy on the search ? She hath a wondrous gift of 
discovery.” 

“A good thought, Charles! I will even do as thou 
sayest. But search the castle first, from vane to dun- 
geon, that we may be assured the roundhead hath indeed 
vanished.” 

As he spoke the marquis turned him round, to search 
the wide gray fields again for the shadowy horse that 
roamed them tetherless. But the steed would not come 
to his call, he grew chilly and asthmatic, tossed to and 
fro, and began to dread an attack of the gout. 

The sun rose higher; the hive of men and women was 
astir once more ; the clatter of the day’s work and the 
buzz of the day’s talk began, and nothing was in any- 
body’s mouth but the escape of the prisoner. His 
capture and trial were already of the past, forgotten for 
the time in the nearer astonishment. Lord Charles went 
searching, questioning, peering about everywhere, but 
could find neither the prisoner nor the traitorous hole. 

Meantime Mrs. Watson was not a little anxious until 
she should have revealed what she knew to the marquis, 
for the prisoner was in her charge when he disappeared. 
In the course of the morning lord Charles came to her 
apartment to question her, but she begged to be excused, 
because of a certain disclosure she was not at liberty to 
make to any but his father. Lord Charles, whom she 
had known from his boyhood, readily yielded, and Mrs. 
Watson, five minutes after he had left his room, followed 
the marquis to his study, whither it was his custom 
always to repair before breakfast. He was looking pale 
from the trouble of the night, which had resulted in 
unmistakable symptoms of the gout, listened to all she 
had to tell him without comment, looked grave, and told 
her to fetch mistress Dorothy. As soon as she was gone 


JUDGE GOUT : 


307 


he called Scudamore from the antechamber, and sent 
him to request lord Charles’s presence. He came at 
once, and was there when Dorothy entered. 

She was very white and worn, and her eyes were 
heavily downcast. Her face wore that expression so 
much resembling guilt which indicates the misery the 
most innocent feel the most under the consciousness oi 
suspicion. At the sight of lord Charles, she crimsoned : 
it was one thing to confess to the marquis, and quite 
another to do so in the presence of his son. 

The marquis sat with one leg on a stool, already in 
the gradually contracting gripe of his ghoulish enemy. 
Before Dorothy could recover from the annoyance of 
finding lord Charles present, or open her mouth to beg 
for a more private interview, he addressed her abruptly. 

“ Our young rebel friend hath escaped, it seems, mis- 
tress Dorothy!” he said, gently but coldly, looking her 
full in the eyes, with searching gaze, and hard expres- 
sion. 

“I am glad to hear it, my lord,” returned Dorothy, 
with a sudden influx of courage, coming, as the wind 
blows, she knew not whence. 

“Ha!” said the marquis, quickly; “then is it news to 
thee, mistress Dorothy!” 

His lip, as it seemed to Dorothy, curled into a mock- 
ing smile; but the gout might have been in it. 

“ Indeed it is news, my lord. I hoped it might be so, 
I confess, but I knew not that so it was.” 

“ What, mistress Dorothy ! knewest thou not that the 
young thief was gone ?” 

“I knew that Richard Heywood was gone from his 
chamber — whether from the castle I knew not. He was 
no thief, my lord.' Your lordship’s page and fool were 
the thieves.” 

“ Cousin, I hardly know myself in the change I find in 


308 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


thee! Truly, a marvelous change! In the dark night 
thou takest a roundhead prisoner; in the gray of the 
morning thou settest him free again ! Hath one visit to 
his chamber so wrought upon thee? To an old man it 
seemeth less than maidenly.” 

Again a burning blush overspread poor Dorothy’s 
countenance. But she governed herself, and spoke 
bravely, although she could not keep her voice from 
trembling. 

“ My lord,” she said, “ Richard Heywood was my 
playmate. We were as brother and sister, for our fath- 
ers’ lands bordered each other. ” 

“Thou didst say nothing of these things last night!” 

“ My lord ! Before the whole hall ? Besides, what 
mattered it ? All was over long ago, and I had done my 
part against him.” 

“Fell you out together then?” 

“ What need is there for your lordship to ask ? Thou 
seest him of the one part, and me of the other.” 

“And from loving thou didst fall to hating?” 

“God forbid, my lord! I but do my part against 
him.” 

“For the which thou hadst a noble opportunity un- 
sought, raising the hue and cry upon him within his 
enemy’s walls !” 

“ I would to God, my lord, it had not fallen to me.” 

“ Thinking better of it, therefore, and repenting of thy 
harshness, thou didst seek his chamber in the night to 
tell him so? I would fain know how a maiden reasoneth 
with herself when she doth such things.” 

“ Not so, my lord. I will tell you all. I could not 
sleep for thinking of my wounded playmate. And as to 
what he had done, after it became clear that he sought 
but his own, and meant no hair’s-breadth of harm to 
your lordship, I confess the matter looked not the same.” 


JUDGE GOUT. 


309 


“ Therefore you would make him amends and undo 
what you had done? You had caught the bird, and had 
therefore a right to free the bird when you would ? All 
well, mistress Dorothy, had he been indeed a bird ! But 
being a man, and in thy friend’s house, I doubt thy 
logic. The thing had passed from thy hands into mine, 
young mistress,” said the marquis, into the ball of whose 
foot the gout that moment ran its unicorn-horn. 

“I did not set him free, my lord. When I entered 
the prison-chamber, he was already gone.” 

“ Thou hadst the will and didst it not ! Is there yet 
another in my house who had the will and did it?” cried 
the marquis, who, although more than annoyed that she 
should have so committed herself, yet was willing to give 
such scope to a lover, that if she had but confessed she 
had liberated him, he would have pardoned her heartily. 
He did not yet know how incapable Dorothy was of a 
lie. 

“ But, my lord, I had not the will to set him free,” she 
said. 

“Wherefore then didst go to him?” 

“My lord, he was sorely wounded, and I had seen 
him fall fainting,” said Dorothy, repressing her tears 
with much ado. 

“And thou didst go to comfort him?” 

Dorothy was silent. 

“ How earnest thou locked into his room ? Tell me 
that, mistress.” 

“Your lordship knows as much of that as I do. — In- 
deed I have been sorely punished for a little fault.” 

“Thou dost confess the fault then?” 

“ If it was a fault to visit him who was sick and in 
prison, my lord.” 

The marquis was silent for a whole minute. 

“ And thou canst not tell how he gat him forth of the 


310 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


walls? — Must I believe him to be forth of them, my 
lord ?” he said, turning to his son. 

“I cannot imagine him within them, my lord, after 
such search as we have made.” 

“ Still,” returned the marquis, the acuteness of whose 
wits had not been swallowed up by that of the gout, “ so 
long as thou canst not tell how he gat forth, I may 
doubt whether he be forth. If the manner of his exit be 
acknowledged hidden, wherefore not the place of his 
refuge? — Mistress Dorothy,” he contined, altogether 
averse to the supposition of treachery amongst his peo- 
ple, “ thou art bound by all obligations of loyalty and 
shelter and truth to tell what thou knowest. An* thou 
do not, thou art a traitor to the house, yea to thy king, 
for when the worst comes, and this his castle is besieged, 
much harm may be wrought by that secret passage, yea, 
it may be taken thereby.” 

“You say true, my lord* I should indeed be so bound, 
an’ I knew what my lord would have me disclose.” 

“One may be bound, and remain bound,” said the 
marquis, spying prevarication. “ Now the thing is over, 
and the youth safe, all I ask of thee, and surely it is not 
much, is but to bar the door against his return — except 
indeed thou did from the first contrive so to meet thy 
roundhead lover in my loyal house. Then indeed it 
were too much to require of thee ! Ah ha ! mistress 
Dorothy, the little blind god is a rascally deceiver. He 
is but blind nor’ nor’ west. He playeth hoodman, and 
peepeth over his bandage.” 

“ My lord, you wrong me much,” said Dorothy, and 
burst into tears, while once more the red lava of the 
human center rushed up over neck and brow. “ I did 
think that I had done enough both for my lord of 
Worcester and against Richard Heywood, and I did 
hope that he had escaped : there lies the worst I can lay 


JUDGE GOUT \ 311 

to my charge even in thought, my lord, and I trust it is 
no more than may be found pardonable.” 

“ It sets an ill example to my quiet house if the ladies 
therein go anights to the gentlemen’s chambers.” 

“ My lord, you are cruel,” said Dorothy. 

“Not a soul in the house knows it but myself, my 
lord,” said Mrs. Watson. 

“ Hold there, my good woman ! Whose hand was it 
turned the key upon her ? More than thou must know 
thereof. — Hear me, mistress Dorothy : I would be heart- 
loath to quarrel with thee, and in all honesty I am glad 
thy lover ” 

“ He is no lover of mine, my lord ! At least ” 

“Be he what he may, he is a fine fellow, and I am 
glad he hath escaped. Do thou but find out for my lord 
Charles here the cursed rat-hole by which he goes and 
comes, and I will gladly forgive thee all the trouble thou 
hast brought into my sober house. For truly never 
hath been in my day such confusions and uproars therein 
as since thou earnest hither, and thy dog and thy lover 
and thy lover’s mare followed thee.” 

“ Alas, my lord ! if I were fortunate enough to find it, 
what would you but say I found it where I knew well to 
look for it ?” 

“ Find it, and I promise thee I will never say word on 
the matter again. Thou art a good girl, an’ thou do 
venture a hair too far for a lover. — The still ones are 
always the worst, mistress Watson.” 

“My lord! my lord!” cried Dorothy, but ended not, 
for his lordship gave a louder cry. His face was con- 
torted with anguish, and he writhed under the tiger 
fangs of the gout. 

“ Go away,” he shouted, “ or I shall disgrace my man- 
hood before women, God help me !” 

“ I trust thee will bear me no malice,” said the house- 


312 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


keeper, as they walked in the direction of Dorothy’s 
chamber. 

“You did but your duty,” said Dorothy quietly. 

“ I will do all I can for thee,” continued Mrs. Watson, 
mounted again, if not on her high horse then on her 
palfrey, by her master’s behavior to the poor girl — “if 
thou but confess to me how thou didst contrive the 
young gentleman’s escape, and wherefore he locked the 
door upon thee.” 

At the moment they were close to Dorothy’s room : 
her answer to the impertinence was to walk in and shut 
the door; and Mrs. Watson was thenceforward entirely 
satisfied of her guilt. 


CHAPTER XXXIV. 


AN EVIL TIME. 

A ND now was an evil time for Dorothy. She retired 
to her chamber more than disheartened by lord 
Worcesters behavior to her, vexed with herself for doing 
what she would have been more vexed with herself for 
having left undone, feeling wronged, lonely, and dis- 
graced, conscious of honesty yet ashamed to show herself 
— and all for the sake of a presumptuous boy, whose 
opinions were a disgust to her and his actions a horror ! 
Yet not only did she not repent of what she had done, 
but, fact as strange as natural, began, with mingled 
pleasure and annoyance, to feel her heart drawn towards 
the fanatic as the only one left her in the world capable 
of doing her justice, that was, of understanding her. 
She thus unknowingly made a step towards the discovery 
that it is infinitely better to think wrong and to act right 
upon that wrong thinking, than it is to think right and 
not to do as that thinking requires of us. In the former 
case the man’s house, if not built upon the rock, at least 
has the rock beneath it ; in the latter, it is founded on 
nothing but sand. The former man may be a Saul of 
Tarsus; the latter a Judas Iscariot. He who acts right 
will soon think right ; he who acts wrong will soon think 
wrong. Any two persons acting faithfully upon opposite 
convictions, are divided but by a bowing wall ; any two, 
in belief most harmonious, who do not act upon it, are 
divided by infinite gulfs of the blackness of darkness, 
across which neither ever beholds the real self of the 
other. 


o 


314 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


Dorothy ought to have gone at once to lady Margaret 
and told her all; but she naturally and rightly shrank 
from what might seem an appeal to the daughter against 
the judgment of the father; neither could she dare hope 
that, if she did, her judgment would not be against her 
also. Her feelings were now in danger of being turned 
back upon herself, and growing bitter; for a lasting 
sense of injury is, of the human moods, one of the least 
favorable to sweetness and growth. There was no one 
to whom she could turn. Had good Dr. Bayly been at 
home — but he was away on some important mission from 
his lordship to the king : and indeed she could scarcely 
have looked for refuge from such misery as hers in the 
judgment of the rather priggish old-bachelor ecclesiastic. 
Gladly would she have forsaken the castle, and returned 
to all the dangers and fears of her lonely home; but that 
would be to yield to a lie, to flee from the devil instead 
of facing him, and with her own hand to fix the imputed 
smirch upon her forehead, exposing herself besides to 
the suspicion of having fled to join her lover and cast in 
her lot with his amongst the traitors. Besides, she had 
been left by lord Herbert in charge- of his fire-engine 
and the water of the castle, which trust she could not 
abandon. Whatever might be yet to come of it, she 
must stay and encounter it, and would in the mean time 
set herself to discover if she might, the secret pathway 
by which dog and man came and went at their pleasure. 
This she owed her friends, even at the risk, in case of 
success, of confirming the marquis’s worst suspicions. 

She was not altogether wrong in her unconscious 
judgment of lady Margaret. Her nature was such as, 
its nobility tinctured with romance, rendered her per- 
fectly capable of understanding either of the two halves 
of Dorothy’s behavior, but was not sufficient to the 
reception and understanding of the two parts together. 


AN EVIL TIME. 


315 


That is, she could have understood the heroic capture 
of her former lover, or she could have understood her 
going to visit him in his trouble, and even, what Dorothy 
was incapable of, his release ; but she was not yet equal 
to understanding how she should set herself so against a 
man, even to his wounding and capture, whom she loved 
so much as, immediately thereupon, to dare the loss of 
her good name by going to his chamber, so placing her- 
self in the power of a man she had injured, as well as 
running a great risk of discovery on the part of her 
friends. Hence she was quite prepared to accept the 
solution of her strange conduct which by and by, it was 
hard to say how, came to be offered and received all 
over the castle — that Dorothy first admitted, then cap- 
tured, and finally released the handsome young round- 
head. 

Her first impressions of the affair, lady Margaret re- 
ceived from lord Charles, who was certainly prejudiced 
against Dorothy, and no doubt jealous of the relation of 
the fine young rebel to a loyal maiden of Raglan ; while 
the suspicion, almost belief, that she knew and would 
not reveal the flaw in his castle, the idea of which had 
begun to haunt him like some spot in his own body of 
which pain made him unnaturally conscious, annoyed 
him more and more. To do him justice, I must not 
omit to mention that he never made a communication 
on the matter to any but his sister-in-law, who would 
however have certainly had a more kindly as well as 
exculpatory feeling towards Dorothy, had she first heard 
the truth from her own lips. 

For some little time, not perceiving the difficulties in 
her way, and perhaps from unlikeness not understanding 
the disinclination of such a girl to self-defense, lady 
Margaret continued to expect a visit from her, with 
excuse at least if not confession and apology upon her 


316 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


lips, and was hurt by her silence as much as offended by 
her behavior. She was yet more annoyed, when they first 
met, that, notwithstanding her evident suffering, she 
wore such an air of reticence, and thence she both re- 
garded and addressed her coldly ; so that Dorothy was 
confirmed in her disinclination to confide in her. Be- 
sides, as she said to herself, she had nothing to tell but 
what she had already told ; everything depended on the 
interpretation accorded to the facts, and the right inter- 
pretation was just the one thing she had found herself 
unable to convey. If her friends did not, she could not 
justify herself. 

She tried hard to behave as she ought, for, conscious 
how much appearances were against her, she felt it 
would be unjust to allow her affection towards her mis- 
tress to be in the least shaken by her treatment of her, 
and was if possible more submissive and eager in her 
service than before. But in this she was every now and 
then rudely checked by the fear that lady Margaret 
would take it as the endeavor of guilt to win favor; and, 
do what she would, instead of getting closer to her, she 
felt, every time they met, that the hedge of separation 
which had sprung up between them had in the interval 
grown thicker. By degrees her mistress had assumed 
towards the poor girl that impervious manner of self- 
contained dignity, which, according to her who wears it, 
is the carriage either of a wing-bound angel, the gait of 
a stork, or the hobble of a crab. 

Of a different kind was the change which now began 
to take place towards her on the part of another member 
of the household. 

While she had been intent upon Richard as he stood 
before the marquis, not Amanda only but another as well 
had been intent upon her. Poor creature as Scudamore 
yet was, he possessed, besides no small generosity of 


AN EVIL TIME . 


317 


nature, a good deal of surface sympathy, and a ready 
interest in the shows of humanity. Hence as he stood 
regarding now the face of the prisoner and now that of 
Dorothy, whom he knew for old friends, he could not 
help noticing that every phase of the prisoner, so to 
speak, might be read on Dorothy. He was too shallow 
to attribute this to anything more than the interest she 
must feel in the results of the exploit she had performed. 
The mere suggestion of what had afforded such wide 
ground - for speculation on the part of Amanda, was to 
Scudamore rendered impossible by the meeting of two 
things — the fact that, the only time he had seen them 
together, Richard was very plainly out of favor, and now 
the all-important share Dorothy had had in his capture. 
But the longer he looked, the more he found himself 
attracted by the rich changefulness of expression on a 
countenance usually very still. He surmised little of 
the conflict of emotions that sent it to the surface, had 
to construct no theory to calm the restlessness of intel- 
lectual curiosity, discovered no secret feeding of the 
flame from behind. Yet the flame itself drew him as the 
candle draws the moth. Emotion in the face of a woman 
was enough to attract Scudamore ; the prettier the face, 
the stronger the attraction, but the source or character 
of the emotion mattered nothing to him : he asked no 
/ questions any more than the moth, but circled the flame. 
In a word, Dorothy had now all at once become to him 
interesting. 

As soon as she found a safe opportunity, Amanda 
told him of Dorothy’s being found in the turret cham- 
ber, a fact she pretended to have heard in confidence 
from Mrs. Watson, concealing her own part in it. But 
as Amanda spoke Dorothy became to Rowland twice as 
interesting as ever Amanda had been. There was a real 
romance about the girl, he thought. And then she 


318 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


looked so quiet ! He never thought of defending her or 
playing the true part of a cousin. Amanda might think 
of her as she pleased : Rowland was content. Had he 
cared ever so much more for her judgment than he did, 
it would have been all the same. How far Dorothy had 
been right or wrong in visiting Heywood, he did not even 
conjecture, not to say consider. It was enough that she 
who had been to him like the blank in the centre of the 
African map, was now a region of marvels and possibili- 
ties, vague but not the less interesting, or the less worthy 
of beholding the interest she had awaked. As to her 
loving the roundhead fellow, that would not stand long 
in the way. 

In this period then of gloom and wretchedness, Doro- 
thy became aware of a certain increase of attention on 
the part of her cousin. This she attributed to kindness 
generated of pity. But to accept it, and so confess that 
she needed it, would have been to place herself too much 
on a level with one whom she did not respect, while at 
the same time it would confirm him in whatever probably 
mistaken grounds he had for offering it. She therefore 
met his advances kindly but coldly, a treatment under 
which his feelings towards her began to ripen into some- 
thing a little deeper and more genuine. 

Daring the next ten days or so, Dorothy could not 
help feeling that she was regarded by almost every one 
in the castle as in disgrace, and that deservedly. The 
most unpleasant proof she had of this was the behavior 
of the female servants, some of them assuming airs of 
injured innocence, others of offensive familiarity in her 
presence, while only one, a kitchen-maid she seldom saw, 
Tom Fool’s bride in the marriage-jest, showed her the 
same respect as formerly. This girl came to her one 
night in her room, and with tears in her eyes besought 
permission to carry her meals thither, that she might be 


AN EVIL TIME. 


319 


spared eating with the rude ladies, as in her indignation 
she called them. But Dorothy saw that to forsake Mrs. 
Watson’s table would be to fly the field, and therefore, 
hateful as it was to meet the looks of those around it, 
she did so with unvailed lids and an enforced dignity 
which made itself felt. But the effort was as exhausting 
as painful, and the reflex of shame, felt as shame in spite 
of innocence, was eating into her heart. In vain she said 
to herself that she was guiltless ; in vain she folded her- 
self round in the cloak of her former composure ; the 
consciousness that, to say the least of it, she was regarded 
as a young woman of questionable refinement, weighed 
down her very eyelids as she crossed the court. 

But she was not left utterly forsaken ; she had still one 
refuge — the workshop, where Caspar Kaltoff wrought 
like an “artificial god;” for the worthy German altered 
his manner to her not a whit, but continued to behave 
with the mingled kindness of a father and devotion of a 
servant. His respect and trustful sympathy showed, 
without word said, that he, if no other, believed nothing 
to her disadvantage, but was as much her humble friend 
as ever; and to the hitherto self-reliant damsel, the 
blessedness of human sympathy, embodied in the looks 
and tones of the hard-handed mechanic, brought such 
healing and such schooling together, that for a long time 
she never said her prayers by her bedside without thank- 
ing God for Caspar Kaltoff. 

Ere long her worn look, thin cheek, and weary eye 
began to work on the heart of lady Margaret, and she 
relented in spirit towards the favorite of her husband, 
whose anticipated disappointment in her had sharpened 
the arrows of her resentment. But to the watery dawn 
of favor which followed, the poor girl could not throw 
wide her windows, knowing it arose from no change in 
lady Margaret’s judgment concerning her : she could 


320 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


not as a culprit accept what had been as a culprit with- 
drawn from her. The conviction burned in her heart 
like cold fire, that, but for compassion upon the desolate 
state of an orphan, she would have been at once dismissed 
from the castle. Sometimes she ventured to think that 
if lord Herbert had been at home, all this would not 
have happened; but now what could she expect other 
than that on his return he would regard her and treat 
her in the same way as his wife and father and brother ? 


CHAPTER XXXV. 


THE DELIVERER. 

B UT she found some relief in applying her mind to 
the task which lord Worcester had set her; and 
many a night as she tossed sleepless on her bed, would 
she turn from the thoughts that tortured her, to brood 
upon the castle, and invent if she might some new possi- 
ble way, however difficult, of getting out of it unseen; 
and many a morning after the night thus spent, would 
she hasten, ere the household was astir, to examine some 
spot which had occured to her as perhaps containing the 
secret she sought. One time it was a chimney that 
might have door and stair concealed within it ; another, 
the stables, where she examined every stall in the hope 
of finding a trap to an underground way. Had any one 
else been in question but Richard, the traitor, the round- 
head, she might have imagined an associate within the 
walls, in which case farther solution would not have 
been for her; but somehow, she did not make it clear to 
herself how, she could not entertain the idea in connec- 
tion with Richard. Besides, in brooding over every- 
thing, it had grown plain to her that both Richard and 
Marquis had that night been through the moat. 

Some who caught sight of her in the early dawn, 
wandering about and peering here and there, thought 
that she was losing her senses ; others more ingenious in 
the thinking of evil, imagined she sought to impress the 
household with a notion of her innocence by pretending 
a search for the concealed flaw in the defenses. 


322 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL . 


Ever since she had been put in charge of the water- 
works, she had been in the habit of lingering a little on 
the roof of the keep as often as occasion took her thither, 
for she delighted in the far outlook on the open country 
which it afforded; and perhaps it was a proof of the 
general healthiness of her nature that now in her misery, 
instead of shutting herself up in her own chamber, she 
oftener sought the walk around the reservoir, looking 
abroad in shadowy hope of some lurking deliverance, 
like captive lady in the stronghold of evil knight. On 
one of these occasions, in the first of the twilight, she 
was leaning over one of the battlements looking down 
upon the moat and its white and yellow blossoms and 
great green leaves, and feeling very desolate. Her 
young life seemed to have crumbled down upon her and 
crushed her heart, and all for one gentle imprudence. 

“O, my mother!” she murmured, “an* thou couldst 
hear me, thou wouldst help me an’ thou couldst. Thy 
poor Dorothy is sorely sad and forsaken, and she knows 
no way of escape. O, my mother, hear me !” 

As she spoke, she looked away from the moat to the 
sky, and spread out her arms in the pain of her petition. 

There was a step behind her. 

“What! what! My little protestant praying to the 
naughty saints ! That will never do.” 

Dorothy had turned with a great start, and stood 
speechless and trembling before lord Herbert. 

“ My poor child !” he said, holding out both his hands, 
and taking those which Dorothy did not offer — “ did I 
startle thee then so much ? I am truly sorry. I heard 
but thy last words; be not afraid of thy secret. But 
what hath come to thee ? Thou art white and thin, 
there are tears on thy face, and it seems as thou wert 
not so glad to see me as I thought thou would’st have 
been. What is amiss ? I hope thou art not sick — but 


THE DELIVERER . 323 

plainly thou art ill at ease ! Go not yet after my Molly, 
cousin, for truly we need thee here yet a while.” 

“Would I might go to Molly, my lord!” said Dorothy. 
“ Molly would believe me.” 

“Thou need’st not go to Molly for that, cousin. I 
will believe thee. Only tell me what thou wouldst have 
me believe, and I will believe it. What ! think’st thou I 
am not magician enough to know whom to believe and 
whom not? Fye, fye, mistress! Thou, on thy part, 
wilt not put faith in thy cousin Herbert!” 

His kind words were to her as the voice of him that 
calleth for the waters of the sea that he may pour them 
out on the face of the earth. The poor girl burst into a 
passion of weeping, fell on her knees before him, and 
holding up her clasped hands, cried out in a voice of 
sob-choked agony — for she was not used to tears, and it 
was to her a rending of the heart to weep — 

“ Save me, save me, my lord ! I have no friend in the 
world who can help me but thee.” 

“ No friend ! What meanest thou, Dorothy ?” said 
lord Herbert, taking her two clasped hands between his. 
“ There is my Margaret and my father !” 

“ Alas, my lord ! they mean well by me, but they do 
not believe me ; and if your lordship believe me no more 
than they, I must go from Raglan. Yet believing me, I 
know not how you could any more help me.” 

“ Dorothy, my child, I can do nothing till thou take 
me with thee. I cannot even comfort thee.” 

“Your lordship is weary,” said Dorothy, rising and 
wiping her eyes. “You cannot yet have eaten since you 
came. Go, my lord, and hear my tale first from them 
that believe me not. They will assure you of nothing 
that is not true, only they understand it not, and wrong 
me in their conjectures. Let my lady Margaret tell it 
you, my lord, and then if you have yet faith enough in 


324 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


me to send for me, I will come and answer all you ask. 
If you send not for me, I will ride from Raglan to- 
morrow.” 

“It shall be as thou sayest, Dorothy. An’ it be not 
fit for the judge to hear both sides of the tale, or an’ it 
boots the innocent which side he first heareth, then were 
he no better judge than good king James, of blessed 
memory, when he was so sore astonished to find both 
sides in the right.” 

“A king, my lord, and judge foolishly!” 

“A king, my damsel, and judged merrily. But fear 
me not; I trust in God to judge fairly even betwixt 
friend and foe, and I doubt not it will be now to 
the lightening of thy trouble, my poor storm-beaten 
dove.” 

It startled Dorothy with a gladness that stung like 
pain to hear the word he never used but to his wife thus 
flit from his lips in the tenderness of his pity, and alight 
like the dove itself upon her head. She thanked him 
with her whole soul, and was silent. 

“ I will send hither to thee, my child, when I require 
thy presence; and when I send, come straight to my 
lady’s parlor.” 

Dorothy bowed her head, but could not speak, and 
lord Herbert walked quickly from her. She heard him 
run down the stair almost with the headlong speed of his 
boy Henry. 

Half an hour passed slowly — then lady Margaret’s 
page came lightly up the steps, bearing the request that 
she would favor his mistress with her presence. She 
rose from the battlement where she had seated herself to 
watch the moon, already far up in the heavens, as she 
brightened through the gathering dusk, and followed 
him with beating heart. 

When she entered the parlor, where as yet no candles 


THE DELIVERER. 325 

had been lighted, she saw and knew nothing till she found 
herself clasped to a bosom heaving with emotion. 

“Forgive me, Dorothy,” sobbed lady Margaret. “I 
have done thee wrong. But thou wilt love me yet again 
— wilt thou not, Dorothy ?” 

“ Madam ! madam !” was all Dorothy could answer, 
kissing her hands. 

Lady Margaret led her to her husband, who kissed her 
on the forehead, and seated her betwixt himself and his 
wife ; and for a space there was silence. Then at last 
said Dorothy : 

“ T ell me, madam, how is it that I find myself once 
more in the garden of your favor ? How know you that 
I am not all unworthy thereof?” 

“ My lord tells me so,” returned lady Margaret 
simply. 

“ And whence doth my lord know it ?” asked Dorothy 
turning to lord Herbert. 

“An’ thou be not satisfied of thine own innocence, 
Dorothy, I will ask thee a few questions. Listen to thine 
answers, and judge. — How came the young puritan into 
the castle that night ? — But stay : we must have candles, 
for how can I, the judge, or my lady, the jury, see into 
the heart of the prisoner save through the window of her 
face?” 

Dorothy laughed — her first laugh since the evil fog had 
ascended and swathed her. Lady Margaret rang the bell 
on her table. Candles were brought from where they 
stood ready in the ante-chamber, and as soon as they 
began to burn clear, lord Herbert repeated his question. 

“ My lord,” answered Dorothy, “ I look to you to tell 
me so much, for before God I know not.” 

“ Nay, child ! thou need’st not buttress thy words with 
an oath,” said his lordship. “ Thy fair eyes are worth a 
thousand oaths. But to the question : tell me wherefore 


326 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


didst thou not let the young man go when first thou spied 
him ? Wherefore didst ring the alarum bell ? Thou 
sawest he was upon his own mare, for thou knewest her 
— didst thou not?” 

“ I did, my lord ; but he had no business there, and I 
was of my lord Worcester’s household. Here I am not 
Dorothy Vaughan, but my lady’s gentlewoman.” 

“ Then why didst thou go to his room thereafter ? 
Didst thou not know it for the most perilous adventure 
maiden could undergo ?” 

“ Perilous it hath indeed proved, my lord.” 

“And might have proved worse than perilous.” 

“ No, my lord. Other danger was none where Richard 
was,” returned Dorothy with vehemence. 

“ It beareth a look as if mayhap thou dost or mightst 
one day love the young man !” said lord Herbert in slow 
pondering tone. 

“ My spirit hath of late been driven to hold him com- 
pany, my lord. It seemed that, save Caspar, I had no 
friend left but him. God help me ! it were a fearful thing 
to love a fanatic ! But I will resist the devil.” 

“ Truly we are in lack of a few such devils on what 
we count the honest side, Dorothy!” said lord Herbert, 
laughing. “ Not every man that thinks the other way is 
a rogue or a fool. — But thou hast not told me why thou 
didst run the heavy risk of seeking him in the night.” 

“ I could not rest for thinking of him, my lord, with 
that terrible wound in the head I had as good as given 
him, and from whose effects I had last seen him lie as 
one dead. He was my playmate, and my mother loved 
him.” 

Here poor Dorothy broke down and wept, but recov- 
ered herself with an effort, and proceeded. 

“ I kept starting awake, seeing him thus at one time, 
and at another hearing him utter my name as if entreat" 


THE DELIVERER. 327 

ing me to go to him, until at last I believed that I was 
called.” 

“ Called by whom, Dorothy ?” 

“ I thought — I thought, my lord, it might be the same 
that called Samuel, who had opened my ears to hear 
Richard’s voice.” 

“ And it was indeed therefore thou didst go ?” 

“ I think so, my lord. I am sure, at least, but for that 
I would not have gone. — Yet surely I mistook, for see 
what hath come of it,” she added, turning to lady Mar- 
garet. 

“We must not judge from one consequence where 
there are a thousand yet to follow,” said his lordship. 
“ — And thou sayest, when thou didst enter the room 
thou didst find no one there?” 

“ I say so, my lord, and it is true.” 

“ That I know as well as thou. — What then didst thou 
think of the matter ?” 

“ I was filled with fear, my lord, when I saw the bed- 
clothes all in a heap on the floor, but upon reflection I 
hoped that he had had the better in the struggle, and 
had escaped ; for now at least he could do no harm in 
Raglan, I thought. But when I found the door was 

locked, 1 dare hardly think of that, my lord ; it 

makes me tremble yet.” 

“ Now who thinkest thou in thy heart did lock the 
door upon thee ?” 

“ Might it not have been Satan himself, my lord ?” 

“ Nay, I cannot tell what might or might not be where 
such a one is so plainly concerned. But I believe he 
was only acting in his usual fashion, which, as a matter 
of course, must be his worst — I mean through the heart 
and hands of some one in the house who would bring 
thee into trouble.” 

“I would it were the other way, my lord.” 


328 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


“ So would I heartily. In his own person I fear him 
not a whit. But hast thou no suspicion of any one owing 
thee a grudge, who might be glad on such opportunity 
to pay it thee with interest?” 

“ I must confess I have, my lord ; but I beg of your 
lordship not to question me on the matter further, for it 
reaches only to suspicion. I know nothing, and might, 
if I uttered a word, be guilty of grievous wrong. Pardon 
me, my lord.” 

Lord Herbert looked hard at his wife. Lady Margaret 
drooped her head. 

“Thou art right, indeed, my good cousin!” he said, 
turning again to Dorothy ; “ for that would be to do by 
another as thou sufferest so sorely from others doing by 
thee. I must send my brains about and make a discov- 
ery or two for myself. It is well I have a few days to 
spend at home. — And now to the first part of the busi- 
ness in hand. — Hast thou any special way of calling thy 
dog? — It is a moonlit night, I believe.” 

He rose and went to the window, over which hung a 
heavy curtain of Flemish tapestry. 

“ It is a three-quarter old moon, my lord,” said Doro- 
thy, “ and very bright. — I did use to call my dog with a 
whistle my mother gave me when I was a child.” 

“ Canst thou lay thy hand upon it ? Hast thou it with 
thee in Raglan ?” 

“ I have it in my hand now, my lord.” 

“ What then with the moon and thy whistle, I think 
we shall not fail.” 

“Hast lost thy wits, Ned ?” said his wife. “Or what 
fiend wouldst thou raise to-night?” 

“I would lay one rather,” returned lord Herbert. 
“ But first I would discover this same perilous fault in 
the armor of my house. — Is thy genet still in thy control, 
Dorothy ?” 


THE DELIVERER, 329 

“ I have no reason to think otherwise, my lord. The 
frolicker he, the merrier ever was I.” 

“ Darest thou then ride him alone in the moonlight — 
outside the walls?” 

“ I dare anything on Dick’s back — that Dick can do, 
my lord.” 

“Doth thy dog know Caspar — in friendly fashion, I 
mean ?” 

“Caspar is the only one in the castle he is quite 
friendly with, my lord.” 

“Then is all as I would have it. And now I will 
tell thee what I would not have : I would not have a 
soul in the place but my lady here know that I am 
searching with thee after this dog - and - man - hole. 
Therefore I will saddle thy little horse for thee myself, 
and ” 

“No, no, my lord!” interrupted Dorothy. “That / 
can do.” 

“ So much the better for thee. But I am no boor, fair 
damsel. — Then shalt thou mount and ride him forth, 
and Marquis thy mastiff shall see thee go from the yard. 
Then will I mount the keep, and from that point of 
vantage look down upon the two courts, while Caspar 
goes to stand by thy dog. Thou shalt ride slowly along 
for a minute or two, until these preparations shall have 
been made ; then shalt thou blow thy whistle, and set off 
at a gallop to round the castle, still ever and anon blow- 
ing thy whistle; by which means, if I should fail to see 
thy Marquis leave the castle, thou mayest perchance 
discover at least from which side of the castle he comes 
to thee.” 

Dorothy sprang to her feet. 

“I am ready, my lord,” she said. 

“And so am I, my maiden,” returned lord Herbert, 
rising. “ — Wilt go to the top of the keep, wife, and 


330 ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 

grant me the light of eyes in aid of the moonshine? 
I will come thither presently.” 

“Thou shalt find me there, Ned, I promise thee. 
Mother Mary speed thy quest!” 


CHAPTER XXXVI. 


THE DISCOVERY. 

A LL was done as had been arranged. Lord Herbert 
saddled Dick, not unaided of Dorothy, lifted her 
to his back, and led her to the gate, in full vision of 
Marquis, who went wild at the sight, and threatened to 
pull down kennel and all in his endeavors to follow 
them. Lord Herbert himself opened the yard gate, for 
the horses had already been suppered, and the men were 
in bed. He then walked by her side down to the brick 
gate. A moment there and she was free and alone, with 
the wide green fields and the yellow moonlight all about 
her. 

She had some difficulty in making Dick go slowly — 
quietly she could not — for the first minute or two, as 
lord Herbert had directed. He had had but little exer- 
cise of late, and moved as if his four legs felt like wings. 
Dorothy had ridden him very little since she came to 
the castle, but being very handy, lord Charles had used 
him, and one of the grooms had always taken him to 
ride messages. He had notwithstanding had but little 
of the pleasure of speed for a long time, and when Dor- 
othy at length gave him the rein, he flew as if every 
member of his body from tail to ears and eyelids had 
been an engine of propulsion. But Dorothy had more 
wings than Dick. Her whole being was full of wings. 
It was a small thing that she had not had a right gallop 
since she left Wyfern; the strength she had been putting 
forth to bear the Atlas burden that night lifted from her 
soul, was now left free to upbear her, and she seemed in 


332 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


spirit to soar aloft into the regions of aether. With her 
horse under her, the moon over her, “ the wind of their 
own speed ” around them, and her heart beating with a 
joy such as she had never known, she could hardly help 
doubting sometimes for a moment whether she was not 
out in one of those delightful dreams of liberty and 
motion which had so frequently visited her sleep since 
she came to Raglan. Three shrill whistles she had 
blown, about a hundred yards from the gate, had heard 
the eager crowded bark of her dog in answer, and then 
Dick went flying over the fields like a water-bird over 
the lake, that scratches its smooth surface with its feet as 
it flies. Around the rampart they went. The still night 
was jubilant around them as they flew. The stars shone 
as if they knew all about her joy, that the shadow of 
guilt had been lifted from her, and that to her the world 
again was fair. She felt as the freed Psyche must feel 
when she drops the clay, and lo! the whole chrysalid 
world, which had hitherto hung as a clog at her foot, fast 
by the inexorable chain our blindness calls gravitation, 
has dropped from her with the clay, and the universe is 
her own. 

At intervals she blew her whistle, and ever kept her 
keen eyes and ears awake, looking and listening before 
and behind, in the hope of hearing her dog, or seeing 
him come bounding through the moonlight. 

Meantime lord Herbert and his wife had taken their 
stand on the top of the great tower, and were looking 
down — the lady into the stone court, and her husband 
into the grass one. Dorothy’s shrill whistle came once, 
twice and just as it began to sound a third time, 

“ Here he comes!” cried lady Margaret. 

A black shadow went from the foot of the library 
tower, tearing across the moonlight to the hall door, 
where it vanished. But in vain lord Herbert kept his 


THE DISCOVERY. 


333 


eyes on the fountain court, in the hope of its reappear- 
ance there. Presently they heard a heavy plunge in the 
water on the other side of the keep, and, running round, 
saw plainly, the moat there lying broad in the moonlight, 
a little black object making its way across it. Through 
the obstructing floats of water-lily-leaves, it held steadily 
over to the other side. There for a moment they saw 
the whole body of the animal, as he scrambled out of 
the water up against the steep side of the moat — when 
suddenly, and most unaccountably to lady Margaret, he 
disappeared. 

“I have it!” cried lord Herbert. “What an ass I was 
not to think of it before ! Come down with me, my 
dove, and I will show thee. Dorothy’s Marquis hath 
got into the drain of the moat ! He is a large dog, and 
beyond a doubt that is where the young roundhead 
entered. Who could have dreamed of such a thing ! I 
had no thought it was such a size.” 

Dorothy, having made the circuit, and arrived again 
at the brick-gate, found lord Herbert waiting there and 
pulled up. 

“ I have seen nothing of him, my lord,” she said, as he 
came to her side. “ Shall I ride round once more ?” 

“ Do, prithee, for I see thou dost enjoy it. But we 
have already learned all we want to know, so far as goeth 
to the security of the castle. There is but one marquis 
in Raglan and he is, I believe, in the oak parlor.” 

“You saw my Marquis make his exit then, my lord?” 

“ My lady and I both saw him.” 

“What then can have become of him ? — We went very 
fast, and I suppose he gave up the chase in despair.” 

“ Thou wilt find him the second round. But stay — I 
will get a horse and go with thee.” 

Dorothy went within the gate and lord Herbert ran 
back to the stables. In a few minutes he was by her side 


334 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


again, and together they rode around the huge nest. 
The moon was glorious, with a few large white clouds 
around her, like great mirrors hung up to catch and 
reflect her light. The stars were few, and doubtful neat 
the moon, but shone like diamonds in the dark spaces 
between the clouds. The rugged fortress lay swathed in 
the softness of the creamy light. No noise broke the 
stillness, save the dull drum-beat of their horses’ hoofs 
on the turf, or their cymbal-clatter where they crossed 
a road, and the occasional shrill call from Dorothy’s 
whistle. 

On all sides the green fields, cow-cropped, divided by 
hedgerows, and spotted with trees, single and in clumps, 
came close to the castle-walls except in one or two places 
where the corner of a red plowed field came wedging 
in. All was so quiet and so soft that the gaunt old walls 
looked as if, having at first with harsh intrusion forced 
their way up into the sweet realm of air from the stony 
regions of the earth beneath, by slow degrees, yet long 
since, they had suffered an air change, and been charmed 
and gentled into harmony with soft winds and odors and 
moonlight. To Dorothy it seemed as if peace itself had 
taken form in the feathery weight that filled the flaky 
air ; and as her horse galloped along, flying like a bird 
over ditch and mound, her own heart so light that her 
body seemed to float above the saddle rather than rest 
upon it, she felt like a soul which, having been dragged 
to hell by a lurking fiend, a good and strong angel was 
bearing aloft into bliss. Few delights can equal the 
mere presence of one whom we trust utterly. 

No mastiff came to Dorothy’s whistle, and having 
finished their round, they rode back to the stables, put 
up their horses, and rejoined lady Margaret where she 
was still pacing the sunk walk around the moat. There 
lord Herbert showed Dorothy where her dog vanished, 


THE DISCO VER Y. 


335 


comforting her with the assurance that nothing should 
be altered before the faithful animal returned, as doubt- 
less he would the moment he despaired of finding her in 
the open country. 

Lord Herbert said nothing to his father that night 
lest he should spoil his rest, for he was yet far from well, 
but finding him a good deal better the next morning he 
laid open the whole matter to him according to his con- 
victions concerning Dorothy and her behavior, ending 
with the words : “ That maiden, my lord, hath truth 

enough in her heart to serve the whole castle an’ if it 
might be but shared. To doubt her is to wrong the 
very light. I fear there are not many maidens in 
England who would have the courage and honesty, 
necessary both, to act as she hath done.” 

The marquis listened attentively, and when lord Her- 
bert had ended, sat a few moments in silence ; then, for 
all answer, said, 

“ Go and fetch her, my lad.” 

When Dorothy entered, — 

“ Come hither, maiden,” he said from his chair. 
“ Wilt thou kiss an old man who hath wronged thee — for 
so my son hath taught me?” 

Dorothy stooped, and he kissed her on both cheeks, 
with the tears in his eyes. 

“Thou shalt dine at my table,” he said, “an’ thy 
mistress will permit thee, as I doubt not she will when I 
ask her, until— thou art weary of our dull company.— 
Hear me, cousin Dorothy: an’ thou wilt go with us to 
mass next Sunday, thou shalt sit on one side of me and 
thy mistress on the other, and all the castle shall see 
thee there, and shall know that thou art our dear cousin, 
mistress Dorothy Vaughan, and shall do thee honor.” 

“ I thank you, my lord, with all my heart,” said Doro- 
thy, with troubled look, “ but— may I then speak without 


336 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


offense to your lordship, where my heart knoweth naught 
but honor, love, and obedience?” 

“Speak what thou wilt, so it be what thou woukTst,” 
answered the marquis. 

“Then pardon me, my lord, that which would have 
made my mother sad, and would make my good master 
Herbert sorry that he brought me hither. He would 
fear I had forsaken the church of my fathers.” 

“And returned to the church of thy grandfathers — eh, 
mistress Dorothy? — And wherefore, then, should that 
weigh so much with thee, so long as thou wert no traitor 
to our blessed Lord ?” 

“ But should I be no traitor, sir, an’ I served him not 
with my best ?” 

“Thou hast nothing better than thy heart to give him, 
and nothing worse will serve his turn ; and that we two 
have offered where I would have thee offer thine — and I 
trust, Herbert, the offering hath not Iain unaccepted.” 

“ I trust not, my lord,” responded Herbert. 

“But, my lord,” said Dorothy, with hot cheek and 
trembling voice, “ if I brought it him upon a dish which 
I believed to be of brass, when I had one of silver in the 
house, would it avail with him that your lordship knew 
the dish to be no brass, but the finest of gold ? I should 
be unworthy of your lordship’s favor if, to be replaced in 
the honor of men, I did that which needed the pardon 
of God.” 

“ I told thee so, sir ! ” cried lord Herbert, who had 
been listening with radiant countenance. 

“Thou art a good girl, Dorothy,” said the marquis. 
“Verily I spoke but to try thee, and I thank God thou 
hast stood the trial, and answered aright. Now I am 
sure of thee; and I will no more doubt thee — not if I 
wake in the night and find thee standing over me with a 
drawn dagger like Judith. An’ my worthy Bayly had 


THE DISCOVERY, 


33 ? 


been at home, perchance this had not happened; but 
forgive me, Dorothy, for the gout is the sting of the 
devil’s own tail, and driveth men mad. Verily it seem- 
eth now as if I could never have behaved to thee as I 
have done. Why, one might say the foolish fat old man 
was jealous of the handsome young puritan ! The wheel 
will come round, Dorothy. One day thou wilt marry 
him.” 

“Never, my lord!” exclaimed Dorothy with vehe- 
mence. 

“And when thou dost,” the marquis went on, “all I 
beg of thee is, that on thy wedding day thou whisper thy 
bridegroom: 'My lord of Worcester told me so’; and 
therewith thou shalt have my blessing, whether I be 
down here in Raglan, or up the great stair with little 
Molly.” 

Dorothy was silent. The marquis held out his hand. 
She kissed it, left the room, and flew to the top of the 
keep 


CHAPTER XXXVII. 


THE HOROSCOPE. 

E RE the next day was over, it was understood 
throughout the castle that lord Herbert was con- 
structing a horoscope — not that there were many in the 
place who understood what a horoscope really was, or 
had any knowledge of the modes ot that astrology in 
whose results they firmly believed*, yet Kaltoff having 
been seen carrying several mysterious-looking instru- 
ments to the top of the library tower, the word was 
presently in everybody’s mouth. Nor were the lovers of 
marvel likely to be disappointed, for no sooner was the 
sun down than there was lord Herbert, his head, in an 
outlandish Persian hat, visible over the parapet from the 
stone-court, while from some of the higher windows in 
the grass court might be seen through a battlement his 
long flowing gown of a golden tint, wrought with hiero- 
glyphics in blue. Now he would stand for a while gazing 
up into the heavens, now would be shifting and adjusting 
this or that instrument, then peering along or through 
it, and then re-arranging it, or kneeling and drawing 
lines, now circular, now straight, upon a sheet of paper 
spread flat on the roof of the tower. There he still was 
when the household retired to rest, and there, in the 
gray dawn, his wife, waking up and peeping from her 
window, saw him still, against the cold sky, pacing the 
roof with bent head and thoughtful demeanor. In the 
morning he was gone, and no one but lady Margaret 
saw him during the whole of the following day. Nor 
indeed could any but herself or Caspar have found him, 


THE HOROSCOPE. 


339 


for the tale Tom Fool told the rustics of a magically- 
concealed armory had been suggested by a rumor cur- 
rent in the house, believed by all without any proof, and 
yet not the less a fact, that lord Herbert had a chamber 
of which none of the domestics knew door or window, 
or even the locality. That recourse should have been 
had to spells and incantations for its concealment, how- 
ever, as was also commonly accepted, would have seemed 
trouble unnecessary to any one who knew the mechanical 
means his lordship had employed for the purpose. The 
touch of a pin on a certain spot in one of the book-cases 
in the library, admitted him to a wooden stair which 
with the aid of Caspar he had constructed in an ancient 
disused chimney, and which led down to a small cham- 
ber in the roof of a sort of porch built over the stair 
from the stone court to the stables. There was no other 
access to it, and the place had never been used, nor had 
any window but one which they had constructed in the 
roof so cunningly as to attract no notice. All the house- 
hold supposed the hidden chamber, whose existence was 
unquestioned, to be in the great tower, somewhere near 
the workshop. 

In this place he kept his books of alchemy and magic, 
and some of his stranger instruments. It would have 
been hard for himself even to say what he did or did not 
believe of such things. In certain moods, especially 
when under the influence of some fact he had just dis- 
covered without being able to account for it, he was 
ready to believe everything; in others, especially when 
he had just succeeded, right or wrong, in explaining 
anything to his own satisfaction, he doubted them all 
considerably. His imagination leaned lovingly towards 
them ; his intellect required proofs which he had not yet 
found. 

Hither then he had retired — to work out the sequences 


340 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


of the horoscopes he had that night constructed. He 
was far less doubtful of astrology than of magic. It 
would have been difficult, I suspect, to find at that time 
a man who did not more or less believe in the former, 
and the influence of his mechanical pursuits upon lord 
Herbert’s mind had not in any way interfered with his 
capacity for such belief. In the present case, however, 
he trusted for success rather to his knowledge of human 
nature than to his questioning of the stars. 

Before this, the second day, was over, it was every- 
where whispered that he was occupied in discovering the 
hidden way by which entrance and exit had been found 
through the defenses of the castle ; and the next day it 
was known by everybody that he had been successful — 
as who could doubt he must, with such powers at his 
command ? 

For a time curiosity got the better of fear, and there 
was not a soul in the place except one bedridden old 
woman, who did not that day accept lord Herbert’s 
general invitation, and pass over the Gothic bridge to 
see the opening from the opposite side of the moat. To 
seal the conviction that the discovery had indeed been 
made, permission was given to any one who chose to 
apply to it the test of his own person, but of this only 
Shafto the groom availed himself. It was enough how- 
ever: he disappeared, and while the group which saw 
him enter the opening was yet anxiously waiting his 
return by the way he had gone, having re-entered by the 
western gate he came upon them from behind, to the no 
small consternation of those of weaker nerves, and so 
settled the matter for ever. 

As soon as curiosity was satisfied, lord Herbert gave 
orders which, in the course of a few days, rendered the 
drain as impassable to man or dog as the walls of the 
keep itself. 


THE HOROSCOPE. 


341 


In the middle of the previous night, Marquis had 
returned, and announced himself by scratching and 
whining for admittance at the door of Dorothy’s room. 
She let him in, but not until the morning discovered 
that he had a handkerchief tied round his neck, and in 
it a letter addressed to herself. Curious, perhaps some- 
thing more than curious to open it, she yet carried it 
straight to lord Herbert. 

“ Canst not break the seal, Dorothy, that thou bringest 
it to me? I will not read it first, lest thou repent,” said 
his lordship. 

“Will you open it then, madam?” she said, turning to 
lady Margaret. 

“ What my lord will not, why should I ?” rejoined her 
mistress. 

Dorothy opened the letter without more ado, crim- 
soned, read it to the end, and handed it again to lord 
Herbert. 

“ Pray read, my lord,” she said. 

He took it, and read. It ran thus — 

“ Mistress Dorothy, I think, and yet I know not, but I think thou 
wilt be pleased to learn that my Wound hath not proved mortal, 
though it hath brought me low, yea, very nigh to Death’s Door. 
Think not I feared to enter. But it grieveth me to the Heart to 
ride another than my own Mare to the Wars, and it will pleasure 
thee to know that without my Lady, I shall be but Half the Man I 
was. But do thou the Like again when thou mayest, for thou but 
didst thy Duty according to thy Lights, according to what else 
should any one do ? Mistaken as thou art, I love thee as mine own 
Soul. As to the Ring I left for thee, with a safe Messenger, concern- 
ing whom I say Nothing, for thou wilt con her no Thanks for the 
doing of aught to pleasure me, I restored it not because it was thine, 
for thy mother gave it me, but because, if for Lack of my Mare I 
should fall in some Battle of those that are to follow, then would the 
Ring pass to a Hand whose Heart knew nought of her who gave it 
me. I am what thou knowest not, yet thine old Playfellow Richard. 
— When thou hearest of me in the Wars, as perchance thou mayest, 


342 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


then curse me not, but sigh an thou wilt, and say, he also would in 
his Blindness do the Thing that lay at his Door. God be with thee, 
mistress Dorothy. Beat not thy Dog for bringing thee this. 

“Richard Heywood.” 

Lord Herbert gave the letter to his wife, and paced 
up and down the room while she read. Dorothy stood 
silent with glowing face and downcast eyes. When lady 
Margaret had finished it she handed it to her and turned 
to her husband with the words, — 

“ What sayest thou, Ned ? Is it not a brave epistle ?” 

“There is matter for thought therein,” he answered. 
“ Wilt show me the ring whereof he writes, cousin ?” 

“ I never had it, my lord.” 

“ Whom thinkest thou then he calleth his safe messen- 
ger? Not thy dog — plainly, for the ring had been sent 
thee before.” 

“ My lord, I cannot even conjecture,” answered Doro- 
thy. 

“ There is matter herein that asketh attention. My 
lady, and cousin Dorothy, not a word of all this until I 
shall have considered what it may import ! — Beat not thy 
dog, Dorothy : that were other than he deserveth at thy 
hand. But he is a dangerous go-between, so prithee let 
him be at once chained up.” 

“ I will not beat him, my lord, and I will chain him 
up,” answered Dorothy, laughing. 

Having then announced the discovery of the hidden 
passage, and given orders concerning it, lord Herbert 
retired yet again to his secret chamber, and that night 
was once more seen of many consulting the stars from 
the top of the library tower. 

The following morning another rumor was abroad — to 
the effect that his lordship was now occupied in question- 
ing the stars as to who in the castle had aided the young 
roundhead in making his escape. 


THE HOROSCOPE. 


343 


In the evening, soon after supper, there came a gentle 
tap to the door of lady Margaret’s parlor. At that time 
she was understood to be disengaged, and willing to see 
any of the household. Harry happened to be with her, 
and she sent him to the door to see who it was. 

“It is Tom Fool,” he said, returning. “He begs 
speech of you, madam — with a face as long as the baker’s 
shovel, and a mouth as wide as his oven-door.” 

With their Irish stepmother the children took far 
greater freedoms than would have been permitted them 
by the jealous care of their own mother over their 
manners. 

Lady Margaret smiled : this was probably the first 
fruit of her husband’s astrological investigations. 

“Tell him he may enter, and do thou leave him alone 
with me, Harry,” she said. 

Allowing for exaggeration Harry had truly reported 
Tom’s appearance. He was trembling from head to foot 
and very white. 

“ What aileth thee, Tom, that thou lookest as thou had 
seen a hobgoblin,” said lady Margaret. 

“ Please you, my lady,” answered Tom, “ I am in mor- 
tal terror of my lord Herbert.” 

“ Then hast thou been doing amiss, Tom ; for no well- 
doer ever yet was afeard of my lord. Comest thou 
because thou wouldst confess the truth?” 

“Ay, my lady,” faltered Tom. 

“Come, then; I will lead thee to my lord ?” 

“ No, no, an’t please you, my lady !” cried Tom, tremb- 
ling yet more. “ I will confess to you, my lady, and 
then do you confess to my lord, so that he may forgive 
me. 

“Well, I will venture so far for thee, Tom,” returned 
her ladyship; “that is, if thou be honest, and tell me 
all.” 


344 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


Thus encouraged, Tom cleansed his stuffed bosom, 
telling all the part he had borne in Richard’s escape, 
even to the disclosure of the watchword to his mother. 

Is there not this peculiarity about the fear of the super- 
natural, even let it be of the lowest and most slavish 
kind, that under it men speak the truth, believing that 
alone can shelter them ? 

Lady Margaret dismissed him with hopes of forgive- 
ness, and going straight to her husband in his secret 
chamber, amused him largely with her vivid representa- 
tion, amounting indeed to no sparing mimicry of Tom’s 
looks and words as he made his confession. 

Here was much gained, but Tom had cast no ray of 
light upon the matter of Dorothy’s imprisonment. The 
next day lord Herbert sent for him to his workshop, 
where he was then alone. He appeared in a state of 
abject terror. 

“ Now, Tom,” said his lordship, “ hast thou made a 
clean breast of it ?” 

“Yes, my lord,” answered Tom; “there be but one 
thing more.” 

“ What is that ? Out with it.” 

“ As I went back to my chamber, at the top of the stair 
leading down from my lord’s dining parlor to the hall, 
commonly called my lord’s stair,” said Tom, who de- 
lighted in the pseudo-circumstantial, “ I stopped to 
recover my breath, of the which I was sorely bereft, and 
kneeling on the seat of the little window that commands 
the archway to the keep, I saw the prisoner — ” 

“ How knewest thou the prisoner ere it was yet day- 
break, and that in the darkest corner of all the court ?” 

“ I knew him by the way my bones shook at the white 
sleeves of his shirt, my lord,” said Tom, who was too far 
gone in fear to make the joke of pretending courage. 

“ Hardly evidence, Tom. But go on.” 


THE HOROSCOPE. 


345 


“ And with him I saw mistress Dorothy, — ” 

“Hold there, Tom!” cried lord Herbert. “Where- 
fore didst not impart this last night to my lady?” 

“Because my lady loveth mistress Dorothy, and I 
dreaded she would therefore refuse to believe me.” 

“ What a heap of cunning goes to the making of a 
downright fool!” said lord Herbert to himself, but so as 
Tom could not fail to hear him. “And what saw’st thou 
pass between them?” he asked. 

“ Only a whispering with their heads together,” 
answered Tom. 

“ And what heard ’st thou ?” 

“ Nothing, my lord.” 

“And what followed?” 

“ The roundhead left her, and went through the arch- 
way. She stood a moment and then followed him. But 
I, fearful of her coming up the stair and finding me, gat 
me quickly to my own place.” 

“ O, Tom, Tom! I am ashamed of thee. What! 
Afraid of a woman ? Verily thy heart is of wax.” 

“ That can hardly be, my lord, for I find it still on the 
wane.” 

“An’ thy wit were no better than thy courage thou 
hadst never had enough to play the fool with.” 

“ No, my lord ; I should have had to turn philoso- 
pher.” 

“A fair hit, Tom! But tell me, why wast thou afeard 
of mistress Dorothy ?” 

“It might have come to a quarrel in some sort, my 
lord; and there is one thing I have remarked in my 
wanderings through this valley of Baca,” said Tom, 
speaking through his nose, and lengthening his face 
beyond even its own nature, “ namely, that he who quar- 
rels with a woman goes ever to the wall.” 

“One thing perplexes me, Tom: if thou sawest mis- 


346 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


tress Dorothy in the court with the roundhead, how 
came she thereafter, thinkest thou, locked up in his 
chamber?” 

“It behoves that she went into it again, my lord.” 

“How knowest thou she had been there before ?” 

“Nay, I know not, my lord. I know nothing of the 
matter.” 

“Why say’st it then? Take heed to thy words, Tom. 
Who then thinkest thou did lock the door upon her?” 

“ I know not, my lord, and dare hardly say what I 
think. But let your lordship’s wisdom determine whether 
it might not be one of those demons whereof the house 
hath been full ever since that night when I saw them rise 
from the water of the moat — that even now surrounds 
us, my lord ! — and rush into the fountain court.” 

“ Meddle thou not, even in thy thoughts, with things 
that are beyond thee,” said lord Herbert. “By what 
signs knewest thou mistress Dorothy in the dark as she 
stood talking to the roundhead ?” 

“ There was light enough to know woman from man, 
my lord.” 

“And were there then that night no women in the 
castle but mistress Dorothy?” 

“Why, who else could it have been, my lord?” 

“ Why not thine own mother, Tom — rode thither on 
her broomstick to deliver her darling?” 

Tom gaped with fresh terror at the awful suggestion. 

“Now, hear me, Thomas Rees,” his lordship went on. 

“Yes, my lord, answered Tom. 

“An’ ever it come to my knowledge that thou say 
thou then saw mistress Dorothy, when all thou sawest 
was, as thou knowest, a woman who might have been 
thine own mother, talking to the roundhead, as thou 
callest a man who might indeed have been Caspar Kal- 
toff in his shirt sleeves, I will set every devil at my 


THE HOROSCOPE . 


347 


command upon thy back and thy belly, thy sides and 
thy soles. Be warned, and not only speak the truth, as 
thou hast for a whole half-hour been trying hard to do, 
but learn to distinguish between thy fancies and God’s 
facts ; for verily thou art a greater fool than I took thee 
for, and that was no small one. Get thee gone, and 
send me hither mistress Watson.” 

Tom crawled away, and presently Mrs. Watson ap- 
peared, looking offended, possibly at being called to the 
workshop, and a little frightened. 

“ I cannot but think thee somewhat remiss in thy 
ministrations to a sick man, mistress Watson,” he said, 
“ to leave him so long to himself. Had he been a king’s 
officer now, wouldst thou not have shown him more 
favor ?” 

“That, indeed, may be, my lord,” returned Mrs. Wat- 
son with dignity. “ But an’ the young fellow had been 
very sick, he had not made his escape.” 

“ And left the blame thereof with thee. Besides, that 
he did for his escape he may have done in the strength 
of the fever that followeth on such a wound.” 

“ My lord, I gave him a potion, wherefrom he should 
have slept until I sought him again.” 

“Was he or thou to blame that he did not feel the 
obligation? When a man instead of sleeping runneth 
away, the potion was ill mingled, I doubt, mistress Wat- 
son — drove him crazy perchance.” 

“ She who waked him when he ought to have slept 
hath to bear the blame, not I, my lord.” 

“ Thou shouldst, I say, have kept better watch. But 
tell me whom meanest thou by that same she ?” 

“ She who was found in his chamber, my lord,” said 
Mrs. Watson, compressing her lips, as if, come what 
might, she would stand on the foundation of the truth. 

“Ah? — By the way, I would gladly understand how it 


348 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


came to be known throughout the castle that thou didst 
find her there ? I have the assurance of my lady, my 
lord marquis, and my lord Charles, that never did one 
of them utter word so to slander an orphan as thou hast 
now done in my hearing. Who then can it be but her 
who is at the head of the meiny of this house, who hath 
misdemeaned herself thus to the spreading amongst 
those under her of evil reports and surmises affecting 
her lord’s cousin, mistress Dorothy Vaughan?” 

“You wrong me grievously, my lord,” cried Mrs. 
Watson, red with the wrath of injury and undeserved 
reproof. 

“ Thou hast thyself to thank for it then, for thou hast 
this night said in mine own ears that mistress Dorothy 
waked thy prisoner, importing that she thereafter set 
him free, when thou knowest that she denies the same, 
and is therein believed by my lord marquis and all his 
house.” 

“ Therein I believe her not, my lord ; but I swear by 
all the saints and angels, that to none but your lordship 
have I ever said the word ; neither have I ever opened 
my lips against her, lest I should take from her the 
chance of betterment.” 

“I will be more just to thee than thou hast been to 
my cousin, mistress Watson, for I will believe thee that 
thou didst only harbor evil in thy heart, not send it from 
the doors of thy lips to enter into other bosoms. Was it 
thou then that did lock the door upon her?” 

“God forbid, my lord!” 

“ Thinkest thou it was the roundhead ?” 

“ No, surely, my lord, for where would be the need?” 

“Lest she should issue and give the alarm.” 

Mrs. Watson smiled an acid smile. 

“Then the doer of that evil deed,” pursued lord Her- 
bert, “ must be now in the castle, and from this moment 


THE HOROSCOPE. 


349 


every power 1 possess in earth, air, or sea, shall be taxed 
to the uttermost for the discovery of that evil person. 
Let this vow of mine be known, mistress Watson, as a 
thing thou hast heard me say, not commission thee to 
report. Prithee take heed to what I desire of thee, for I 
am not altogether powerless to enforce that I would.” 

Mrs. Watson left the workshop in humbled mood. 
To her spiritual benefit lord Herbert had succeeded in 
punishing her for her cruelty to Dorothy ; and she was 
not the less willing to mind his injunction as to the mode 
of mentioning his intent, thac it would serve to the 
quenching of any suspicion that she had come under his 
disapproval. 

And now lord Herbert, depending more upon his wits 
than his learning, found himself a good deal in the dark. 
Confident that neither Richard, Tom Fool, nor Mrs. 
Watson had locked the door of the turret chamber after 
Dorothy’s entrance, he gave one moment to the exam- 
ination of the lock, and was satisfied that an enemy had 
done it. He then started his thoughts on another track, 
tending towards the same point: how was it that the 
roundhead, who had been carried insensible to the 
turret-chamber, had been able, ere yet more than a film 
of gray thinned the darkness, without alarming a single 
sleeper, to find his way from a part of the house where 
there were no stairs near, and many rooms, all occupied ? 
Clearly by the help of her, whoever she was, whom Tom 
Fool had seen with him by the hall door. She had 
guided him down my lord’s stair, and thus avoided the 
risk of crossing the paved court to the hall door within 
sight of the warders of the main entrance. To her in- 
dubitably the young roundhead had committed the ring 
for Dorothy. Here then was one secret agent in the 
affair: was it likely there had been two? If not, this 
woman was one and the same with the person who 


350 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


turned the key upon Dorothy. She probably had been 
approaching the snare while the traitress talked with the 
prisoner. What did her presence so soon again in the 
vicinity of the turret-chamber indicate? Possibly that 
her own chamber was near it. The next step then was 
to learn from the housekeeper who slept in the neigh- 
borhood of the turret-chamber, and then to narrow the 
ground of search by inquiring which, if any of them, 
slept alone. 

He found there were two who occupied each a cham- 
ber by herself; one of them was Amanda, the other 
Mrs. Watson. 

Now therefore he knew distinctly in what direction 
first he must point his tentatives. Before he went farther 
however, he drew from Dorothy an accurate description 
of the ring to which Richard’s letter alluded, and imme- 
diately set about making one after it, from stage to stage 
of its progress bringing it to her for examination and 
criticism, until, before the day was over, he had com- 
pleted a model sufficiently like to pass for the same. 

The greater portion of the next day he spent in getting 
into perfect condition a certain mechanical toy which he 
had constructed many years before, and familiarizing 
himself with its working. This done, he found himself 
ready foi his final venture, to give greater solemnity to 
which he ordered the alarm bell to be rung, and the 
herald of the castle to call aloud, first from the bell-tower 
in the grass-court, next from the roof of the hall-porch 
in the stone-court, communicating with the minstrels’ 
gallery, that on the following day, after dinner, so soon 
as they should hear the sound of the alarm-bell, every 
soul in the castle, to the infant in arms, all of whatever 
condition, save old mother Prescot, who was bed-ridden, 
should appear in the great hall, that lord Herbert might 
perceive which amongst them had insulted the lord and 


THE HOROSCOPE. 


351 


the rule of the house by the locking of one of its doors 
to the imprisonment and wrong of his lordship’s cousin, 
mistress Dorothy Vaughan. Three strokes of the great 
bell opened and closed the announcement, and a great 
hush of expectancy, not unmingled with fear, fell upon 
the place. 

There was one in the household, however, who at first 
objected to the whole proceeding. That was Sir Toby 
Mathews, the catholic chaplain. He went to the mar- 
quis and represented that, if there was to be any exercise 
whatever of unlawful power, the obligations of the sacred 
office with which he was invested would not permit him 
to be present or connive thereat. The marquis merrily 
insisted that it was a case of exorcism ; that the devil 
was in the castle and out he must go; that if Satan 
assisted in the detection of the guilty and the purging of 
the innocent, then was he divided against himself, and 
what could be better for the church or the world ? But 
for his own part he had no hand in it, and if Sir Toby 
had anything to say against it, he must go to his son. 
This he did at once ; but lord Herbert speedily satisfied 
him, pledging himself that there should be nothing done 
by aid from beneath, and making solemn assertion that 
if ever he had employed any of the evil powers to work 
out his designs, it had been as their master and not their 
accomplice. 


CHAPTER XXX VIII. 


THE EXORCISM. 

I T was the custom in Raglan to close the gates at 
eleven o’clock every morning, and then begin to lay 
the tables for dinner; nor were they opened again until 
the meal was over, and all had dispersed to their various 
duties. Upon this occasion directions were given that 
the gates should remain closed until the issue of further 
orders. 

There was little talk in the hall during dinner that 
day, and not much in the marquis’s dining room. 

In the midst of the meal at the housekeeper’s table, 
mistress Amanda was taken suddenly ill, and nearly fell 
from her chair. A spoonful of one of Mrs. Watson’s 
strong waters revived her, but she was compelled to leave 
the room. 

When the remains of the dinner had been cleared 
away, the tables lifted from the trestles, and all removed, 
solemn preparations began to be made in the hall. The 
dais was covered with crimson cloth, and chairs were 
arranged on each side against the wall for the lords and 
ladies of the family, while in the wide space between was 
set the marquis’s chair of state. Immediately below the 
dais, chairs were placed by the walls for the ladies and 
officers of the household. The minstrels’ gallery was 
hung with crimson; long ladders were brought, and the 
windows, the great bay window and all save the painted 
one, were hung with thick cloth of the same color, so 
that a dull red light filled the huge place. The floor 


THE EXORCISM . 


353 


was then strewn with fresh rushes, and candles were 
placed and lighted in sconces on the walls, and in two 
large candlesticks, one on each side of the marquis’s 
chair. So numerous were the hands employed in these 
preparations, that about one o’clock the alarum bell 
gave three great tolls, and then silence fell. 

Almost noiselessly, and with faces more than grave, 
the people of the castle in their Sunday clothes began at 
once to come trooping in, — amongst the rest Tom Fool, 
the very picture of dismay. Mrs. Prescot had refused 
to be left behind, partly from terror, partly from curiosi- 
ty, and supine on a hand-barrow was borne in, and laid 
upon two of the table-trestles. Order and what arrange- 
ment was needful were enforced amongst them by Mr. 
Cook, one of the ushers. In came the garrison also, 
with clank and clang, and took their places with coun- 
tenances expressive neither of hardihood nor merriment, 
but a grave expectancy. 

Mostly by the other door came the ladies and officers, 
amongst them Dorothy, and seated themselves below the 
dais. When it seemed at length that all were present, 
the two doors were closed, and silence reigned. 

A few minutes more and the ladies and gentlemen of 
the family, in full dress, entered by the door at the back 
of the dais, and were shown to their places by Mr. Moyle, 
the first usher. Next came the marquis, leaning on lord 
Charles, and walking worse than usual. He too was, 
wonderful to tell, in full dress, and, notwithstanding his 
corpulency and lameness, looked every inch a marquis 
and the head of the house. He placed himself in the 
great chair, and sat upright, looking serenely around on 
the multitude of pale expectant faces, while lord Charles 
took his station erect at his left hand. A moment yet, 
and by the same door, last of all, entered lord Herbert, 
alone, in his garb of astrologer. He came before his 


354 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


father, bowed to him profoundly, and taking his place 
by his right hand, a little in front of the chair, cast a 
keen eye around the assembly. His look was grave, even 
troubled, and indeed somewhat anxious. 

“ Are all present ?” he asked, and was answered only 
by silence. He then waved his right hand three times 
towards heaven, each time throwing open his palm out- 
wards and upwards. At the close of the third wafture, 
a roar as of thunder broke and rolled about the place, 
making the huge hall tremble, and the windows rattle 
and shake fearfully. Some thought it was thunder, 
others thought it more like the consecutive discharge of 
great guns. It grew darker, and through the dim stained 
window many saw a dense black smoke rising from the 
stone-court, at sight of which they trembled yet more, 
for what could it be but the chariot upon which Modo, 
or Mahu, or whatever the demon might be called, rode 
up from the infernal lake ? Again lord Herbert waved 
his arm three times, and again the thunder broke and 
rolled vibrating about the place. A third time he gave 
the sign, and once more, but now close over their 
heads, the thunder broke, and in the midst of its echoes, 
high in the oak roof appeared a little cloud of smoke. 
It seemed to catch the eye of lord Herbert. He made 
one step forward, and held out his hand towards it 
with the gesture of a falconer presenting his wrist to a 
bird. 

“ Ha! art thou here?” he said. 

And to the eyes of all, a creature like a bat was plainly 
visible, perched upon his fore-finger, and waving up and 
down its filmy wings. He looked at it for a moment, 
bent his head to it, seemed to whisper, and then ad- 
dressed it aloud. 

“Go,” he said, “alight upon the head of him or of her 
who hath wrought the evil thou knowest in this house. 


THE EXORCISM. 355 

For it was of thine own kind, and would have smirched 
a fair brow.” 

As he spoke he cast the creature aloft. A smothered 
cry came from some of the women, and Tom Fool gave 
a great sob and held his breath tight. Once round the 
wide space the bat flew, midway between floor and roof, 
and returning perched again upon lord Herbert’s hand. 

“Ha!” said his lordship, stooping his head over it, 
“ what meanest thou ? — Is not the evil-doer in presence ? 
— What ? — Nay, but it cannot be ? — Not within the 
walls ? — Ha ! ‘ Not in the hall ,’ thou sayest !” 

He lifted his head, turned to his father, and said, 

“ Your lordship’s commands have been disregarded. 
One of your people is absent.” 

The marquis turned to lord Charles. 

“ Call me the ushers of the hall, my lord,” he said. 

In a moment the two officers were before him. 

“ Search and see, and bring me word who is absent,” 
said the marquis. 

The gentlemen went down into the crowd, one from 
each side of the dais. 

A minute or two passed, and then Mr. Cook came back 
and said, — 

“My lord, I cannot find Caspar Kaltoff.” 

“Caspar! Art not there, Caspar?” cried lord Her- 
bert. 

“ Here I am, my lord,” answered the voice of Caspar 
from somewhere in the hall. 

“ I beg your lordship’s pardon,” said Mr. Cook. “ I 
failed to find him.” 

“ It matters not, master usher. Look again,” said lord 
Herbert. 

At the moment, Caspar, the sole attendant spirit that 
day at least, upon his lord’s commands, stood in one of 
the deep windows behind the crimson cloth, more than 


356 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


twenty feet above the heads of the assembly. The win- 
dows were connected by a narrow gallery in the thick- 
ness of the wall, communicating also with the minstrels’ 
gallery, by means of which, and a ladder against the 
porch, Caspar could come and go unseen. 

As lord Herbert spoke, Mr. Moyle came up on the 
dais, and brought his report that mistress Amanda Fuller 
was not with the rest of the ladies. 

Lord Herbert turned to his wife. 

“ My lady,” he said, “ mistress Amanda is of your 
people : knowest thou wherefore she cometh not?” 

“ I know not, my lord, but I will send and see,” replied 
lady Margaret. — “ My lady Broughton, wilt thou go and 
inquire wherefore the damsel disregardeth my lord of 
Worcester’s commands?” 

She had chosen the gentlest-hearted of her women to 
go on the message. 

Lady Broughton came back pale and trembling,— in- 
deed there was much pallor and trembling that day in 
Raglan — with the report that she could not find her. A 
shudder ran through the whole body of the hall. Plainly 
the impression was that she had been fetched. The 
thunder and the smoke had not been for nothing : the 
devil had claimed and carried off his own ! On the dais 
the impression was somewhat different ; but all were one 
in this, that every eye was fixed on lord Herbert, every 
thought hanging on his pleasure. 

For a whole minute he stood, apparently lost in medi- 
tation. The bat still rested on his hand, but its wings 
were still. 

He had intended causing it to settle on Amanda’s 
head, but now he must alter his plan. Nor was he sorry 
to do so, for it had involved no small risk of failure, the 
toy requiring most delicate adjustment, and its manage- 
ment a circumspection and nicety that occasioned him 


THE EXORCISM . 


357 


no little anxiety. It had indeed been arranged that 
Amanda should sit right under the window next the dais, 
so that he might have the assistance of Caspar from 
above ; but if by any chance the mechanical bat should 
alight upon the head of another, say Mrs. Doughty or 
lady Broughton, instead of Amanda — what then? He 
was not sorry to find himself rescued from this jeopardy, 
and scarcely more than a minute had elapsed ere he had 
devised a plan by which to turn the check to the advan- 
tage of all — even that of Amanda herself, towards whom 
while he felt bound to bring her to shame should she 
prove guilty, he was yet willing to remember mercy; 
while, should she be innocent, no harm would now result 
from his mistaken suspicion. He turned and whispered 
to his father. 

“I will back thee, lad. Do as thou wilt,” returned 
the marquis, gravely nodding his head. 

“Ushers of the hall,” cried lord Herbert, “close and 
lock both its doors. Lock also the door to the minstrels’ 
gallery, and, with my lord’s leave, that to my lord’s stair. 
My lord Charles, go thou prithee, and with chalk draw 
me a tentacle upon the threshold of each of the four ; 
and do thou, Sir Toby Mathews, make the holy sign 
thereabove upon the lintel and the doorposts. For the 
door to the pitched court, however, leave that until I am 
gone forth and it is closed behind me, and then do 
thereunto the same as to the others, after which let all 
sit in silence. Move not, neither speak, for any sound 
of fear or smell of horror. For the gift that is in him 
from his mother, Thomas Rees shall accompany me. — 
Go to the door, and wait until I come.” 

Having thus spoken he raised the bat towards his 
face, and, approaching his lips, seemed once more to be 
talking to it in whispers. The menials and the garrison 
had no doubt but he talked to his familiar spirit. Of 


358 " 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


their superiors, Mrs. Watson at least was of the same 
conviction. Then he bent his ear towards it as if he 
were listening, and it began to flutter its wings, at which 
Sir Toby’s faith in him began to waver. A moment 
more and he cast the creature from him. It flew aloft, 
traversed the whole length of the roof, and vanished. 
It had in fact, as its master willed, alighted in the farth- 
est corner of the roof, a little dark recess. Then, bowing 
low to his father, the magician stepped down from the 
dais, and walked through a lane of awe-struck domestics 
and soldiery to the door, where Tom stood waiting his 
approach. The fool was in a strange flutter of feelings, 
a conflict of pride and terror, the latter of which would, 
but for the former, have unnerved him quite; for not 
only was he doubtful of the magician’s intent with 
regard to himself, but the hall seemed now the only 
place of security, and all outside it given over to goblins 
or worse. 

The moment they crossed the threshold, the door was 
closed behind them, the holy sign was signed over the 
one, and the pentacle drawn upon the other. 

All eyes were turned upon the marquis. He sat 
motionless. Motionless, too, as if they had been carved 
in stone like the leopard and wyvern over their heads, 
sat all the lords and ladies, embodying in themselves the 
words of the motto there graven, 

Motionless sat the ladies beneath 
the dais, but their faces were troubled and pale, for 
Amanda was one of them, and their imaginations were 
busy with what might now be befalling her. Dorothy 
sat in much distress, for although she could lay no evil 
intent to her own charge, she was yet the cause of the 
whole fearful business. As for Scudamore, though he 
too was white of blee, he said to himself, and honestly, 
that the devil might fly away with her and welcome for 


THE EXORCISM. 


359 


what he cared. One woman in the crowd fainted and 
fell, but uttered never a moan. The very children were 
hushed by the dread that pervaded the air, and the 
smell of sulphur, which from a suspicion grew to a plain 
presence, increased not a little the high-wrought awe. 

After about half an hour, during which expectation of 
something frightful had been growing with every mo- 
ment, three great knocks came to the porch door. Mr. 
Moyle opened it, and in walked lord Herbert as he had 
issued, with Tom Fool, in whom the importance had 
now at length banished almost every sign of dread, at 
his heels. He re-ascended the dais, bowed once more 
to his father, spoke a few words to him in a tone too low 
to be overheard, and then turning to the assembly, said 
with solemn voice and stern countenance : 

“The air is clear. The sin of Raglan is purged. 
Every one to his place.” 

Had not Tom Fool, who had remained by the door, 
led the way from the hall, it might have been doubtful 
when any one would venture to stir ; but, with many a 
deep-drawn breath and sigh of relief, they trooped slowly 
out after him, until the body of the hall was empty. In 
their hearts keen curiosity and vague terror contended 
like fire and water. 

From that hour, while Raglan stood, the face of 
Amanda Serafina was no more seen within its walls. 
At midnight shrieks and loud wailings were heard, but 
if they came from Amanda, they were her last signs. 

I shall not, however, hide the proceedings of lord 
Herbert without the hall any more than he did himself 
when he reached the oak parlor with the members of his 
own family, in which Dorothy seemed now included. — 
He had taken Tom Fool both because he knew the 
castle so well, and might therefore be useful in searching 
for Amanda, and because he believed he might depend, 


360 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


if not on his discretion, yet on his dread for secrecy. 
They had scarcely left the hall before they were joined 
by Caspar, who, while his master and the fool went in 
one direction, set off in another, and after a long search 
in vain, at length found her in an empty stall in the 
subterranean stable, as if, in the agony of her terror at 
the awful noises and the impending discovery, she had 
sought refuge in the companionship of the innocent 
animals. She was crouching, the very image of fear, 
under the manger, gave no cry when he entered, but 
seemed to gather a little courage when she found that 
the approaching steps were those of a human being. 

“ Mistress Amanda Fuller,” said his lordship with 
awful severity, “thou hast in thy possession a jewel 
which is not thine own.” 

“A jewel, my lord?” faltered Amanda, betaking her- 
self by the force of inborn propensity and habit, even 
when hopeless of success in concealment, to the false- 
hood she carried with her like an atmosphere ; “ I know 
not what your lordship means. Of what sort is the 
jewel ?” 

“ One very like this,” returned lord Herbert, producing 
the false ring. 

“Why there you have it, my lord!” 

“Traitress to thy king and thy lord, out of thine own 
mouth have I convicted thee. This is not the ring. 
See!” 

As he spoke he squeezed it betwixt his finger and 
thumb to a shapeless mass and threw it from him — then 
continued : 

“Thou art she who did show the rebel his way from 
the prison into which her lord had cast him.” 

“ He took me by the throat, my lord,” gasped Amanda, 
“ and put me in mortal terror.” 

“ Thou slanderest him,” returned lord Herbert. “ The 


THE EXORCISM. 


361 


roundhead is a gentleman, and would not, to save his 
life, have harmed thee, even had he known what a worth- 
less thing thou art. I will grant that he put thee in 
fear. But wherefore gavest thou no alarm when he was 
gone?” 

• “He made me swear that I would not betray him.” 

“ Let it be so. Why didst thou not reveal the way he 
took?” 

“I knew it not.” 

“Yet thou wentest after him when he left thee. — And 
wherefore didst thou not deliver the ring he gave thee 
for mistress Dorothy ?” 

“ I feared she would betray me, that I had held talk 
with the prisoner.” 

“ Let that too pass as less wicked than cowardly. But 
wherefore didst thou lock the door upon her when thou 
sawest her go into the roundhead’s prison ? Thou 
knewest that therefrom she must bear the blame of 
having set him free, with other blame, and worse for a 
maiden to endure ?” 

“ It was a sudden temptation, my lord, which I knew 
not how to resist, and was carried away thereby. Have 
pity upon me, dear my lord,” moaned Amanda. 

“ I will believe thee there also, for I fear me thou hast 
had so little practice in the art of resisting temptation, 
that thou mightst well yield to one that urged thee to- 
wards such mere essential evil. But how was it that, 
after thou hadst had leisure to reflect, thou didst spread 
abroad the report that she was found there, and that to 
the hurt not only of her loyal fame, but of her maidenly 
honor, understanding well that no one was there but 
herself, and that he alone who could bear testimony to 
her innocence and thy guilt was parted from her by every- 
thing that could divide them except hatred ? Was the 
temptation to that also too sudden for thy resistance ?” 

Q 


362 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL, 


At length Amanda was speechless. She hung her 
head, for the first time in her life ashamed of herself. 

“Go before to thy chamber. I follow thee.” 

She rose to obey, but she could scarcely walk, and he 
ordered the men to assist her. Arrived in her room she 
delivered up the ring, and at lord Herbert’s command - 
proceeded to gather together her few possessions. That 
done, they led her away to the rude chamber in the 
watch tower, where stood the arblast, and there, seated 
on her chest, they left her with the assurance that if she 
cried out or gave any alarm, it would be to the publish- 
ing of her own shame. 

At the dead of night Caspar and Tom, with four 
picked men from the guard, came to lead her away. 
Worn out by that time, and with nothing to sustain her 
from within, she fancied they were going to kill her, and 
giving way utterly, cried and shrieked aloud. Obdurate, 
however, as gentle, they gave no ear to her petitions, but 
bore her through the western gate, and so to the brick 
gate in the rampart, placed her in a carriage behind six 
horses, and set out with her for Caerleon, where her 
mother lived in obscurity. At her door they set her 
down, and leaving the carriage at Usk, returned to 
Raglan one by one in the night, mounted on the horses. 
By the warders who admitted them they were supposed 
to be returned from distinct missions on the king’s 
business. 

Many were the speculations in the castle as to the fate 
of mistress Amanda Serafina Fuller, but the common 
belief continued to be that she had been carried off by 
Satan, body and soul. 


CHAPTER XXXIX. 


NEWBURY. 

E ARLY the next morning after Richard had left the 
cottage for Raglan castle, Mrs. Rees was awaked by 
the sound of a heavy blow against her door. When with 
difficulty she had opened it, Richard or his dead body, 
she knew not which, fell across her threshold. Like poor 
Marquis, he had come to her for help and healing. 

When he got out of the quarry, he made for the high 
road, but missing the way the dog had brought him, had 
some hard work in reaching it, and long before he 
arrived at the cottage, what with his wound, his loss of 
blood, his double wetting, his sleeplessness after Mrs. 
Watson’s potion, want of food, disappointment, and 
fatigue, he was in a high fever. The last mile or two he 
had walked in delirium, but happily with the one 
dominant idea of getting help from Mother Rees. The 
poor woman was greatly shocked to find that the teeth 
of the trap had closed upon her favorite and mangled 
him so terribly. A drop or two of one of her restor- 
atives, however, soon brought him round so far that he 
was able to crawl to the chair on which he had sat the 
night before, now ages agone as it seemed, where he now 
sat shivering and glowing alternately, until with trembling 
hands the good woman had prepared her own bed for 
him. 

“ Thou hast left thy doublet behind thee,” she said, 
“and I warrant me the cake I gave thee in the pouch 
thereof! Hadst thou eaten of that, thou hadst not come 
to this pass.” 

But Richard scarcely heard her voice. His one men- 


364 ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 

tal consciousness was the longing desire to lay his aching 
head on the pillow, and end all effort. 

Finding his wound appeared very tolerably dressed, 
Mrs. Rees would not disturb the bandages. She gave 
him a cooling draught and watched by him till he fell 
asleep. Then she tidied her house, dressed herself, and 
got everything in order for nursing him. She would 
have sent at once to Redware to let his father know 
where and in what condition he was, but not a single 
person came near the cottage the whole day, and she 
dared not leave him before the fever had subsided. He 
raved a good deal, generally in the delusion that he was 
talking to Dorothy — who sought to kill him, and to whom 
he kept giving directions, at one time how to guide the 
knife to reach his heart, at another, how to mingle her 
poison so that it should act with speed and certainty. 

At length one fine evening in early autumn, when the 
red sun shone level through the window of the little room 
where he lay, and made a red glory on the wall, he came 
to himself a little. 

“ Is it blood ?” he murmured. “ Did Dorothy do it ? 
— How foolish I am ! It is but a blot the sun has left 
behind him ! — Ah ! I see ! I am dead and lying on the 
top of my tomb. I am only marble. This is Redware 
church. Oh, mother Rees, is it you ! I am very glad ! 
Cover me over a little. The pall there.” 

His eyes closed, and for a few hours he lay in a deep 
sleep, from which he awoke very weak, but clear headed. 
He remembered nothing however since leaving the 
quarry except what appeared a confused dream of wan- 
dering through an interminable night of darkness, weari- 
ness, and pain. His first words were, — 

“ I must get up, Mother Rees : my father will be 
anxious about me. Besides, I promised to set out for 
Gloucester to-day.” 


NEWBURY . 


365 


She sought to quiet him, but in vain, and was at last 
compelled to inform him that his father, finding he did 
not return, had armed himself, mounted Oliver, and him- 
self led his little company to join the earl of Essex — who 
was now on his way, at the head of an army consisting 
chiefly of the trained bands of London, to raise the siege 
of Gloucester. 

Richard started up, and would have leaped from the 
bed, but fell back helpless and unconscious. When at 
length his nurse had succeeded in restoring him, she had 
much ado to convince him that the best thing in all 
respects was to lie still and submit to be nursed — so to 
get well as soon as possible, and join his father. 

“Alas, mother, I have no horse,” said Richard, and 
hid his face on the pillow. 

“The Lord will provide what thee wants, my son,” 
said the old woman with emotion, neither asking nor 
caring whether the Lord was on the side of the king or 
of the parliament, but as little doubting that he must be 
on the side of Richard. 

He soon began to eat hopefully, and after a day or two 
she found pretty nearly employment enough in cooking 
for him. 

At last, weak as he still was, he would be restrained 
no longer. To Gloucester he must go, and relieve his 
father. Expostulation was unavailing: go he must, he 
said, or his soul would tear itself out of his body, and go 
without it. 

“ Besides, mother, I shall be getting better all the way,” 
he continued. “ — I must go home at once and see 
whether there is anything left to go upon.” 

He rose the same instant, and regardless of the good 
woman’s entreaties, crawled out to go to Redware. She 
followed him at a little distance, and before he had 
walked a quarter of a mile, he was ready to accept her 


366 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


offered arm to help him back. But his recovery was 
now very rapid, and after a few days he felt able for the 
journey. 

At home he found a note from his father, telling him 
where to find money, and informing him that he was 
ready to yield him Oliver the moment he should appear 
to claim him. Richard put on his armor, and went to 
the stable. The weather had been fine, and the harvest 
was wearing gradually to a close ; but the few horses that 
were left were overworked, for the necessities of the war 
had been severe, and that part of the country had 
responded liberally on both sides. Besides, Mr. Hey- 
wood had scarce left an animal judged at all fit to carry 
a man and keep up with the troop. 

When Richard reached the stable, there were in it but 
three, two of which, having brought loads to the barn, 
were now having their mid-day meal and rest. The first 
was one ancient in bones, with pits profound above his 
eyes, and gray hairs all about a face which had once 
been black. 

“ Thou art but fit for old father Time to lay his scythe 
across when he is a weary,” said Richard, and turned to 
the next. 

She was a huge-bodied, short-legged punch, as fat as 
butter, with lop-ears and sleepy eyes. Having finished 
her corn she was churning away at a mangerful of grass. 

“Thou wouldst burst thy belly at the first charge,” 
said Richard, and was approaching the third, one he did 
not recognize, when a vicious, straight-out kick informed 
him that here was temper at least, probably then spirit. 
But when he came near enough to see into the stall, 
there stood the ugliest brute, he thought, that ever ate 
barley. He was very long-bodied and rather short- 
legged, with great tufts at his fetlocks, and the general 
look of a huge rat, in part doubtless from having no hair 


NEWBURY. 


367 


on his long undocked tail. He was biting vigorously at 
his manger, and Richard could see the white of one eye 
glaring at him askance in the gloom. 

“ Dunnot go nigh him, sir,” cried Jacob Fortune, who 
had come up behind. “ Thou knows not his tricks. 
His name be his nature, and we call him Belzebub when 
master Stopchase be not by. I be right glad to see your 
honor up again.” 

Jacob was too old to go to the wars, and too indiffer- 
ent to regret it, but he was faithful, and had authority 
over the few men left. 

“ I thank you, Jacob,” said Richard. “ What brute is 
this? I know him not.” 

“We all knows him too well, master Richard, though 
verily Stopchase bought him but the day before he rode, 
thinking belike he might carry an ear or two of wheat. 
If he be not very good he was not parlous dear; he paid 
for him but an old song. He was warranted to have 
work in him if a man but knew how to get it out.” 

“ He is ugly.” 

“ He is the ugliest horse, cart-horse, nag, or courser, 
on this creation-side,” said the old man, “ — ugly enough 
to fright to death where he doth fail in his endeavor to 
kill. The men are all mortal feared on him, for he do 
kick and he do bite like the living Satan. He wonnot 
go in no cart, but there he do stand eating on his head 
off, as fast as he can. An’ the brute were mine, I would 
slay him; I would, in good sooth.” 

“An’ I had but time to cure him of his evil kicking! 
I fear I must ever ride the last in the troop,” said Rich- 
ard. 

“Why for sure, master, thee never will ride such a 
devil-pig as he to the wars ! Will Farrier say he do 
believe he take his strain from the swine the devils go 
into m the miracle. All the children would make a 


368 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL* 


mock of thee as thou did ride through the villages. 
Look at his legs : they do be like stile-posts ; and do 
but look at his tail !” 

“Lead him out, Jacob, and let me see his head.” 

“ 1 dare not go nigh him, sir. I be not nimble enough 
to get out of the way of his hoof. I be too old, mas- 
ter.” 

Richard pulled on his thick buff glove, and went 
straight into his stall. The brute made a grab at him 
with his teeth, met by a smart blow from Richard’s fist, 
which he did not like, and, rearing, would have struck at 
him with his near fore-foot, but Richard caught it by 
the pastern, and with his left hand again struck him on 
the side of the mouth. The brute then submitted to be 
led out by the halter. And verily he was ugly to behold. 
His neck stuck straight out, and so did his tail, but the 
latter went off in a point, and the former in a hideous 
knob. 

“Here is Jack!” cried the old man. “He lets Jack 
ride him to the water. Here, Jack ! Get thee upon the 
hog-back of Belzebub, and mind the bristles do not flay 
thee, and let master Richard see what paces he hath.” 

The animal tried to take the lad down with his hind 
foot as he mounted, but scarcely was he seated when he 
set off at a swinging trot, in which he plied his posts in 
manner astonishing. Spirit indeed he must have had, 
and plenty, to wield such clubs in such a fashion. His 
joints were so loose that the bones seemed to fly about, 
yet they always came down right. 

“ He is guilty of ‘ hypocrisy against the devil,’ ” said 
Richard: “he is better than he looks. Anyhow, if he 
but carry me thither, he will as well ‘ fill a pit as well as’ 
a handsomer horse. I’ll take him. Have you got a 
saddle for him ?” 

“An’ he had not brought a saddle with him, thou 


NEWBURY. 369 

would not find one in Gwent to fit him,” said the old 
man. 

Yet another day Richard found himself compelled to 
tarry — which he spent in caparisoning Belzebub to the 
best of his ability, with the result of making him, if pos- 
sible, appear still uglier than before. 

The eve of the day of his departure, Marquis paid 
Mrs. Rees a second visit. He wanted no healing or help 
this time, seeming to have come only to offer his re- 
spects. But the knowledge that here was a messenger, 
dumb and discreet, ready to go between and make no 
sign, set Richard longing to use him : what message he 
did send by him I have already recorded. Although, 
however, the dog left them that night, he did not reach 
Raglan till the second morning after, and must have 
been roaming the country or paying other visits all that 
night and the next day as well, with the letter about him, 
which he had allowed no one to touch. 

At last Richard was on his way to Gloucester, mounted 
on Belzebub, and much stared at by the inhabitants of 
every village he passed through. Apparently, however, 
there was something about the centaur-compound which 
prevented their rudeness from going farther. Belzebub 
bore him well, and though not a comfortable horse to 
ride, threw the road behind him at a wonderful rate, as 
often and as long as Richard was able to bear it. But 
he found himself stronger after every rest, and by the 
time he began to draw nigh to Gloucester, he was nearly 
as well as ever, and in excellent spirits — one painful 
thought only haunting him — the fear that he might, 
mounted on Belzebub, have to encounter some one on 
his beloved mare. He was consoled, however, to think 
that the brute was less dangerous to one before than one 
behind him, heels being worse than teeth. 

He soon became aware that something decisive had 


370 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


taken place : either Gloucester had fallen, or Essex had 
raised the siege, for army there was none, though the 
signs of a lately upbroken encampment were visible on 
all sides. Presently, inquiring at the gate, he learned 
that, on the near approach of Essex, the besieging army 
had retired, and that, after a few days’ rest, the general 
had turned again in the direction of London. Richard, 
therefore, having fed Belzebub and eaten his own dinner, 
which in his present condition was more necessary than 
usual to his being of service, mounted his hideous 
charger once more, and pushed on to get up with the 
army. 

Essex had not taken the direct road to London, but 
kept to the southward. That same day he followed him 
as far as Swindon, and found he was coming up with 
him rapidly. Having rested a short night, he reached 
Hungerford the next morning, which he found in great 
commotion because of the intelligence that at Newbury, 
some seven miles distant only, Essex had found his way 
stopped by the king, and that a battle had been raging 
ever since the early morning. 

Having given his horse a good feed of oats and a 
draught of ale, Richard mounted again, and rode hard 
for Newbury. Nor had he rode long before he heard 
the straggling reports of carbines, looked to the priming 
of his pistols, and loosened his sword in its sheath. 
When he got under the wall of Craven park, the sounds 
of conflict grew suddenly plainer. He could distinguish 
the noise of horses’ hoofs, and now and then the con- 
fused cries and shouts of hand-to-hand conflict. At 
Spein, he was all but in it, for there he met wounded 
men, retiring slowly or carried by their comrades. These 
were of his own part, but he did not stop to ask any 
questions. Belzebub snuffed at the fumes of the gum 
powder, and seemed therefrom to derive fresh vigor. 


NEWBURY. 


371 


The lanes and hedges between Spein and Newbury 
had been the scenes of many a sanguinary tussle that 
morning, for nowhere had either army found room to 
deploy. Some of them had been fought over more than 
once or twice. But just before Richard came up, the 
tide had ebbed from that part of the way, for Essex’s 
men had had some advantage, and had driven the king’s 
men through the town and over the bridge, so that he 
found the road clear, save of wounded men and a few 
horses. As he reached Spinhamland, and turned sharp 
to the right into the main street of Newbury, a bullet 
from the pistol of a royalist officer who lay wounded 
struck Belzebub on the crest, what of a crest he had, and 
without injuring made him so furious that his rider had 
much ado to keep him from mischief. For, at the very 
moment, they were met by a rush of parliament pike- 
men, retreating, as he could see, over their heads, from 
a few of the king’s cavalry, who came at a sharp trot 
down the main street. The pikemen had got into dis- 
order pursuing some of the enemy who had divided and 
gone to the right and left up the two diverging streets, 
and when the cavalry appeared at the top of the main 
street, both parts seeing themselves in danger of being 
surrounded, had retreated. They were now putting the 
Kennet with its narrow bridge between them and the 
long-feathered cavaliers, in the hope of gaining time and 
fit ground for forming and presenting a bristled front. 
In the midst of this confused mass of friends Richard 
found himself, the maddened Belzebub every moment 
lashing out behind him when not rearing or biting. 

Before him the bridge rose steep to its crown, con- 
tracting as it rose. At its foot, where it widened to the 
street, stood a single horseman, shouting impatiently to 
the last of the pikemen, and spurring his horse while 
holding him. As the last man cleared the bridge, he 


372 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL'. 


gave him rein, and with a bound and a scramble reached 
the apex and stood within half a neck of the foremost 
of the cavalier troop. A fierce combat instantly began 
between them. The bridge was wide enough for two to 
have fought side by side, but the roundhead contrived 
so to work his antagonist, who was a younger but less 
capable and less powerful man, that no comrade could 
get up beside him for the to-and-fro shifting of his 
horse. 

Meantime Richard had been making his slow way 
through the swarm of hurrying pikemen, doing what he 
could to keep them off Belzebub. The moment he was 
clear, he made a great bolt for the bridge, and the same 
moment perceived who the brave man was. 

“Hold on, sir,” he shouted. “Hold your own, father! 
Here I am ! Here is Richard !” 

And as he shouted he sent Belzebub, like low-flying 
bolt from cross-bow, up the steep crown of the bridge, 
and wedged him in between Oliver and the parapet, just 
as a second cavalier made a dart for the place. At his 
horse Belzebub sprang like a fury, rearing, biting, and 
striking out with his fore-feet in such manner as quite to 
make up to his rider for the disadvantage of his low 
stature. The cavalier’s horse recoiled in terror, rearing 
also, but snorting and backing and wavering, so that, in 
his endeavors to avoid the fury of Belzebub, which was 
frightful to see, for with ears laid back and gleaming 
teeth he looked more like a beast of prey, he would but 
for the crowd behind him have fallen backward down 
the slope. A bullet from one of Richard’s pistols sent 
his rider over his tail, the horse fell sideways against 
that of Mr. Hey wood’s antagonist, and the path was for 
a moment barricaded. 

“Well done, good Belzebub!” cried Richard, as he 
reined him back on to the crest of the bridge. 


NEWBURY. 


373 


“Boy!” said his father sternly, at the same instant 
dealing his encumbered opponent a blow on the head- 
piece which tumbled him also from his horse, “is the 
sacred hour of victory a time to sully with profane and 
foolish jests ? I little thought to hear such words at my 
side — not to say from the mouth of my own son!” 

“Pardon me, father; I praised my horse,” said Rich- 
ard. “ I think not he ever had praise before, but it 
cannot corrupt him, for he is such an ill-conditioned 
brute that they that named him did name him Belzebub. 
Now that he hath once done well, who knoweth but it 
may cease to fit him !” 

“I am glad thy foolish words were so harmless,” 
returned Mr. Heywood, smiling. “ In my ears they 
sounded so evil that I could ill accept their testimony. — 
Verily the animal is marvelous ill-favored, but, as thou 
sayest, he hath done well, and the first return we make 
him shall be to give him another name. The less man 
or horse hath to do with Satan, the better, for what is he 
but the arch-foe of the truth?” 

While they spoke, they kept a keen watch on the 
enemy — who could not get near to attack them, save 
with a few pistol-bullets, mostly wide-shot — for both 
horses were down, and their riders helpless if not slain. 

“What shall we call him then, father?” asked Rich- 
ard. 

“He is amazing like a huge rat!” said his father. 
“ Let us henceforth call him Bishop.” 

“Wherefore Bishop and not Belzebub, sir ?” inquired 
Richard. 

Mr. Heywood laughed, but ere he could reply, a large 
troop of horsemen appeared at the top of the street. 
Glancing then behind in some anxiety, they saw to their 
relief that the pikemen had now formed themselves into 
a hollow square at the foot of the bridge, prepared to 


374 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


receive cavalry. They turned therefore, and passing 
through them, rode to find their regiment. 

From that day Bishop, notwithstanding his faults many 
and grievous, was regarded with respect by both father 
and son, Richard vowing never to mount another, let 
laugh who would, so long as the brute lived and he had 
not recovered Lady. 

But they had to give him room for two on the march, 
and the place behind him was always left vacant, which 
they said gave no more space than he wanted, seeing he 
kicked out his leg to twice its walking length. Before 
long, however, they had got so used to his ways that 
they almost ceased to regard them as faults, and he 
began to grow a favorite in the regiment. 


CHAPTER XL. 


LOVE AND TREASON. 

S UCH was the force of law and custom in Raglan that 
as soon as any commotion ceased things settled at 
once. It was so now. The minds of the marquis and 
lord Charles being at rest both as regarded the gap in the 
defenses of the castle, and the character of its inmates, 
the very next day all was order again. The fate of 
Amanda was allowed gradually to ooze out, but the 
greater portion both of domestics and garrison continued 
firm in the belief that she had been carried off by Satan. 
Young Delaware, indeed, who had been revelling late — 
I mean in the chapel with the organ — and who was 
always the more inclined to believe a thing the stranger 
it was, asserted that he saw the devil fly away with her — 
a testimony which gained as much in one way as it lost 
in another by the fact that he could not see at all. 

To Scudamore her absence, however caused, was only 
a relief. She had ceased to interest him, while Dorothy 
had become to him like an enchanted castle, the spell of 
which he flattered himself he was the knight born to 
break. All his endeavors, however, to attract from her a 
single look such as indicated intelligence, not to say re- 
sponse, were disappointed. She seemed absolutely un- 
suspicious of what he sought, neither, having so long 
pretermitted what claim he might once have established 
to cousinly relations with her, could he now initiate any 
intimacy on that ground. Had she become an inmate of 
Raglan immediately after he first made her acquaintance, 
that might have ripened to something more hopeful ; but 


376 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


when she came she was in sorrow, nor felt that there was 
any comfort in him, while he was beginning to yield to 
the tightening bonds mistress Amanda had flung around 
him. Nor since had he afforded her any ground for 
altering her first impressions, or favorably modifying a 
feature of the portrait lady Margaret had presented of 
him. 

Strange to say, however, poorly grounded as was the 
original interest he had taken in her, and little as he was 
capable of understanding her he soon began, even while 
yet confident in his proved advantages of person and 
mind and power persuasive, to be vaguely wrought upon 
by the superiority of her nature. With this the establish- 
ment of her innocence in the eyes of the household had 
little to do ; indeed, that threatened at first to destroy 
something of her attraction : a passionate, yielding, even 
erring nature had of necessity for such as he far more 
enchantment than a nature that ruled its own emotions, 
and would judge such as might be unveiled to it. 
Neither was it that her cold courtesy and kind indiffer- 
ence roused him to call to the front any of the more 
valuable endowments of his being ; something far better 
had commenced : unconsciously to himself, the dim 
element of truth that flitted vaporous about in him had 
begun to respond to the great pervading and enrounding 
orb of her verity. He began to respect her, began to 
feel drawn as if by another spiritual sense than that of 
which Amanda had laid hold. He found in her an 
element of authority. The conscious influences to whose 
triumph he had been so perniciously accustomed, had 
proved powerless upon her, while those that in her 
resided unconscious were subduing him. Her star was 
dominant over his. 

At length he began to be aware that this was no light 
preference, no passing fancy, but something more serious 


LOVE AND TEE A SON. 


377 


than he had hitherto known — that in fact he was really 
though uncomfortably and unsatisfactorily, in love with 
her. He felt she was not like any other girl he had 
made his shabby lovs to, and would have tried to make 
better to her, but she kept him at a distance, and that 
he began to find tormenting. One day, for example, 
meeting her in the court as she was crossing towards the 
keep, — 

“ I would thou didst take apprentices, cousin,” he said, 
“ so I might be one, and learn of thee the mysteries of 
thy trade.” 

“ Wherefore, cousin ?” 

“That I might spare thee something of thy labor.” 

“ That were no kindness. I am not like thee ; I find 
labor a thing to be courted rather than spared ; I am not 
overwrought.” 

Scudamore gazed into her gray eyes, but found there 
nothing to contradict, nothing to supplement the indiffer- 
ence of her words. There was no lurking sparkle of 
humor, no acknowledgment of kindness. There was a 
something, but he could not understand it, for his poor 
shapeless soul might not read the cosmic mystery 
embodied in their depths. He stammered — who had 
never known himself stammer before, broke the joints of 
an ill-fitted answer, swept the tiles with the long feather 
in his hat, and found himself parted from her, with the 
feeling that he had not of himself left her, but had been 
borne away by some subtle force emanating from her. 

Lord Herbert had again left the castle. More soldiers 
and more must still be raised for the king. Now he 
would be paying his majesty a visit at Oxford, and 
inspecting the life-guards he had provided him, now 
back in south Wales, enlisting men, and straining every 
power in him to keep the district of which his father was 
governor in good affection and loyal behavior. 


378 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


Winter drew nigh, and stayed somewhat the rush of 
events, clogged the wheels of life as they ran towards 
death, brought a little sleep to the world and coolness to 
men’s hearts — led in another Christmas, and looked on 
for a while. 

Nor did the many troubles heaped on England, the 
drained purses, the swollen hearts, the anxious minds, 
the bereaved houses, the ruptures, the sorrows, and the 
hatreds, yet reach to dull in any large measure the 
merriment of the season at Raglan. Customs are like 
carpets, for ever wearing out whether we mark it or no, 
but lord Worcester’s patriarchal prejudices, cleaving to 
the old and looking askance on the new, caused them to 
last longer in Raglan than almost anywhere else : the old 
were the things of his fathers which he had loved from 
his childhood ; the new were the things of his children 
which he had not proven. 

What a fire that was that blazed on the hall-hearth 
under the great chimney, which, dividing in two, 
embraced a fine window, then again becoming one, sent 
the hot blast rushing out far into the waste of wintry air ! 
No one could go within yards of it for the fierce heat of 
the blazing logs, now and then augmented by huge 
lumps of coal. And when, on the evenings of special 
merry-making, the candles were lit, the musicians were 
playing, and a country dance was filling the length of the 
great floor, in which the whole household, from the mar- 
quis himself, if his gout permitted, to the grooms and 
kitchen-maids, would take part, a finer outburst of homely 
splendor, in which was more color than gilding, more 
richness than shine, was not to be seen in all the island. 

On such an occasion Rowland had more than once 
attempted nearer approach to Dorothy, but had gained 
nothing. She neither repelled nor encouraged him, but 
smiled at his better jokes, looked grave at his silly ones, 


LOVE AND TEE A SON. 


379 


and altogether treated him like a boy, young — or old — * 
enough to be troublesome if encouraged. He grew des- 
perate, and so one night summoned up courage as they 
stood together waiting for the next dance. 

“Why will you never talk to me, cousin Dorothy?” he 
said. 

“ Is it so, Mr. Scudamore ? I was not aware. If thou 
spoke and I answered not, I am sorry.” 

“No, I mean not that,” returned Scudamore. “But 
when I venture to speak, you always make me feel as if 
I ought not to have spoken. When I call you cousin 
Dorothy , you reply with Mr. Scudamore .” 

“The relation is hardly near enough to justify a less 
measure of observance.” 

“ Our mothers loved each other.” 

“They found each other worthy.” 

“And do you not find me such?” sighed Scudamore, 
with a smile meant to be both humble and bewitching. 

“N-n-o. Thou hast not made me desire to hold with 
thee much converse.” 

“ Tell me why, cousin, that I may reform that which 
offends thee.” 

“ If a man see not his faults with his own eyes, how 
shall he see them with the eyes of another?” 

“Wilt thou never love me, Dorothy? — not even a 
little?” 

“Wherefore should I love thee, Rowland?” 

“We are commanded to love even our enemies.” 

“Art thou then mine enemy, cousin ?” 

“ No, forsooth ! I am the most loving friend thou 
hast.” 

“Then am I sorely to be pitied.” 

“For having my love?” 

“ Nay ; for having none better than thine. But thank 
God, it is not so.” 


380 ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 

“ Must I then be thine enemy indeed before thou wilt 
love me?” 

“No, cousin: cease to be thine own enemy and I will 
call thee nay friend.” 

“Marry! wherein then am I mine own enemy? I 
lead a sober life enough — as thou seest, ever under the 
eye of my lord.” 

“But what wouldst thou an’ thou wert from under the 
eye of thy lord ? I know thee better than thou thinkest, 
cousin. I have read thy title-page, if not thy whole 
book.” 

“ Tell me then how runneth my title-page, cousin.” 

“ ‘ The art of being willfully blind, or The way to see 
no farther than one would.’ ” 

“ Fair preacher,” began Rowland, but Dorothy inter- 
rupted him. 

“ Nay then, an’ thou betake thee to thy gibes, I have 
done,” she said. 

“Be not angry with me; it is but my nature, which 
for thy sake I will control. — If thou canst not love me, 
wilt thou not then pity me a little?” 

“ That I may pity thee, answer me what good thing is 
there in thee wherefore I should love thee.” 

“Wouldst thou have a man trumpet his own praises?” 

“ I fear not that of thee who hast but the trumpet. — I 
will tell thee this much : I have never seen in thee that 
thou didst love save for the pastime thereof. I doubt if 
thou lovest thy master for more than thy place.” 

“ Oh cousin !” 

“Be honest with thyself, Rowland. If thou would 
have me for thy cousin, it must be on the ground of 
truth.” 

Rowland possessed at least good nature: few young 
men would have borne to be so severely handled. But 
then, while one’s good opinion of himself remains un- 


LOVE AND TEE A SON. 


381 


troubled, confesses no touch, gives out no hollow sound, 
shrinks not self-hurt with the doubt of its own reality, 
hostile criticism will not go very deep, wil ! not reach to 
the quick. The thing that hurts is that which sets 
trembling the ground of self-worship, lays bare the 
shrunk cracks and worm-holes under the golden plates 
of the idol, shows the ants running about in it, and 
renders the foolish smile of the thing hateful. But he 
who will then turn away from his imagined self, and 
refer his life to the hidden ideal self, the angel that ever 
beholds the face of the Father, shall therein be made 
whole and sound, alive and free. 

The dance called them, and their talk ceased. When 
it was over, Dorothy left the hall and sought her cham- 
ber. But in the fountain court her cousin overtook her, 
and had the temerity to resume the conversation. The 
moth would still at any risk circle the candle. It was a 
still night, and therefore not very cold, although icicles 
hung from the mouth of the horse, and here and there 
from the eaves. They stood by the marble basin, and 
the dim lights and scarce dimmer shadows from many 
an upper window passed athwart them as they stood. 
The chapel was faintly lighted, but the lantern-window 
on the top of the hall shone like a yellow diamond in 
the air. 

“Thou dost me scant justice, cousin,” said Rowland, 
“maintaining that I love but myself or for mine own 
ends. I know that I love thee better than so.” 

“ For thine own sake, I would, might I but believe it, 
be glad of the assurance. But ” 

Amanda’s behavior to her having at last roused coun- 
ter observation and speculation on Dorothy’s part, she 
had become suddenly aware that there was an under- 
standing between her and Rowland. It was gradually, 
however, that the question rose in her mind: could 


382 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


these two have been the nightly intruders on the forbid- 
den ground of the workshop, and afterwards the victims 
of the water-shoot ? But the suspicion grew to all but a 
conviction. Latterly she had observed that their be- 
havior to each other was changed, also that Amanda’s 
aversion to herself seemed to have gathered force. And 
one thing she had found remarkable — that Rowland 
revealed no concern for Amanda’s misfortunes, or anxi- 
ety about her fate. With all these things potentially 
present in her mind, she came all at once to the resolu- 
tion of attempting a bold stroke. 

“ But,” Dorothy went on, “when I think how 

thou didst bear thee with mistress Amanda, ” 

“My precious Dorothy!” exclaimed Scudamore, filled 
with a sudden gush of hope, “thou wilt never be so 
unjust to thyself as to be jealous of her ! She is to me 
as nothing — as if she had never been; nor care I for- 
sooth if the devil hath indeed flown away with her 
bodily, as they will have it in the hall and the guard- 
rooms.” 

“ Thou didst seem to hold friendly enough converse 
with her while she was yet one of us.” 

“ Ye-e-s. But she had no heart like thee, Dorothy, as 
I soon discovered. She had indeed a pretty wit of her 
own, but that was all. And then she was spiteful. She 
hated thee, Dorothy.” 

He spoke of her as of one dead. 

“ How knewest thou that ? Wast thou then so far in 
her confidence and art now able to talk of her thus ? 
Where is thine own heart, Mr. Scudamore?” 

“ In thy bosom, lovely Dorothy.” 

“Thou mistakest. But mayhap thou dost imagine I 
picked it up that night thou didst lay it at mistress 
Amanda’s feet in my lord’s workshop in the keep ?” 

Dorothy’s hatred of humbug — which was not the less 


LOVE AND TEE A SON. 


388 


in existence then that they had not the ugly word to 
express the uglier thing — enabled her to fix her eyes on 
him as she spoke, and keep them fixed when she had 
ended. He turned pale — visibly pale through the shad- 
owy night, nor attempted to conceal his confusion. It 
is strange how self-conviction will wait upon foreign 
judgment, as if often only the general conscience were 
powerful enough to wake the individual one. 

“ Or perhaps,” she continued, “ it was torn from thee 
by the waters that swept thee from the bridge, as thou 
didst venture with her yet again upon the forbidden 
ground.” 

He hung his head, and stood before her like a chidden 
child. 

“ Think’st thou,” she went on, “ that my lord would 
easily pardon such things ?” 

“ Thou knewest it, and didst not betray me ! Oh Dor- 
othy!” murmured Scudamore. “Thou art a very angel 
of light, Dorothy.” 

He seized her hand, and but for the possible eyes 
upon them, would have flung himself at her feet. 

Dorothy, however, would not yet lay aside the part 
she had assumed of moral physician — surgeon rather. 

“ But notwithstanding all this, cousin Rowland, when 
trouble came upon the young lady, what comfort was 
there for her in thee ? Never hadst thou loved her, 
although I doubt not thou didst vow and swear thereto 
an hundred times.” 

Rowland was silent. He began to fear her. 

“ Or what love thou hadst was of such sort that thou 
didst encourage in her that which was evil, and then let 
her go like a haggard hawk. Thou marvelest forsooth 
that I should be so careless of thy merits ! Tell me, 
cousin, what is there in thee that I should love ? Can 
there be love for that which is in no wise lovely ? Thou 


384 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


will doubtless say in thy heart, ‘ She is but a girl, and how 
then should she judge concerning men and their ways?’ 
But I appeal to thine own conscience, Rowland, when I 
ask thee — is this well? An’ if a maiden truly loved thee, 
it were all one. Thou wouldst but carry thyself the same 
to her — if not to-day, then to-morrow, or a year hence.” 

“ Not if she were good, Dorothy, like thee,” he mur- 
mured. 

“ Not if thou wert good, Rowland, like him that made 
thee.” 

“ Wilt thou not teach me then to be good like thee, 
Dorothy ?” 

“ Thou must teach thyself to be good like the Row- 
land thou knowest in thy better heart, when it is soft 
and lowly.” 

“Wouldst thou then love me a little, Dorothy, if I 
vowed to be thy scholar, and study to be good ? Give 
me some hope to help me in the hard task.” 

“ He that is good is good for goodness’ sake, Rowland. 
Yet who can fail to love that which is good in king or 
knave ?” 

“ Ah ! but do not mock me, Dorothy : such is not the 
love I would have of thee.” 

“ It is all thou ever canst have of me, and methinks it 
is not like thou wilt ever have it, for verily thou art of 
nature so light that any wind may blow thee into the 
Dead Sea.” 

From a saint it was enough to anger any sinner. 

“I see!” cried Scudamore. “For all thy fine reproof, 
thou too canst spurn a heart at thy feet. I will lay my 
life thou lovest the roundhead, and art but a traitress 
for all thy goodness.” 

“ I am indeed traitress enough to love any roundhead 
gentleman better than a royalist knave,” said Dorothy, 
and turning from him she sought the grand staircase. 


CHAPTER XLI. 


GLAMORGAN, 



'HE winter passed, with much running to and fro, in 


JL foul weather and fair ; and still the sounds of war 
came no nearer to Raglan, which lay like a great lion in 
a desert that the hunter dared not arouse. The whole 
of Wales, except a castle or two, remained subject to the 
king, and this he owed in great measure to the influence 
and devotion of the Somersets, his obligation to whom 
he seemed more and more bent on acknowledging. 

One day in early summer lady Margaret was sitting in 
her parlor, busy with her embroidery, and Dorothy was 
by her side assisting her, when lord Herbert, who had 
been absent for many days, walked in. 

“ How does my lady Glamorgan ?” he said gaily. 

“What mean you, my Herbert?” returned his wife, 
looking in his eyes somewhat eagerly. 

“ Thy Herbert am I no more ; neither plume I myself 
any more in the spare feathers of my father. Thou art, 
my dove, as thou deservest to be, countess of Glamorgan, 
in the right of thine own husband, first earl of the same : 
for such being the will of his majesty, I doubt not thou 
wilt give thy consent thereto, and play the countess 
graciously. Come, Dorothy, art not proud to be cousin 
to an earl ?” 

“ I am proud that you should call me cousin, my lord,” 
answered Dorothy ; “ but truly to me it is all one whether 
you be called Herbert or Glamorgan. So thou remain 
thou, cousin, and my friend, the king may call thee what 
tie will, and if thou art pleased, so am I.” 


386 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


It was the first time she had ever thou' d him, and she 
turned pale at her own daring. 

“St. George! but thou hast well spoken, cousin!” 
cried the earl. “ Hath she not, wife ?” 

“ So well that if she often saith as well, I shall have 
much ado not to hate her,” replied lady Glamorgan. 
“When didst thou ever cry ‘well spoken’ to thy mad 
Irishwoman, Ned?” 

“ All thou dost is well, my lady. Thou hast all the 
titles to my praises already in thy pocket. Besides, 
cousin Dorothy is young and meek, and requireth a little 
encouragement.” 

“ Whereas thy wife is old and bold, and cares no more 
for thy good word, my new lord of Glamorgan ?” 

Dorothy looked so grave that they both fell a laugh- 
ing. 

“ I would thou couldst teach her a merry jest or two, 
Margaret,” said the earl. “ We are decent people 
enough in Raglan, but she is much too sober for us. 
Cheer up, Dorothy ! Good times are at hand : that thou 
mayst not doubt it, listen — but this is only for thy ear, 
not for thy tongue : the king hath made thy cousin, that 
is me, Edward Somerset, the husband of this fair lady, 
generalissimo of his three armies, and admiral of a fleet, 
and truly I know not what all, for I have yet but run my 
eye over the patent. — And, wife, I verily do believe the 
king but bides his time to make my father duke of 
Somerset, and then one day thou wilt be a duchess, 
Margaret ! Think on that !” 

Lady Glamorgan burst into tears. 

“ I would I might have a kiss of my Molly !” she 
cried. 

She had never before in Dorothy’s hearing uttered the 
name of her child since her death. New dignity, strange 
as it may seem to some, awoke suddenly the thought of 


GLAMORGAN. 387 

the darling to whom titles were but words, and the ice 
was broken. A pause followed. 

“Yes, Margaret, thou art right,” said Glamorgan at 
length ; “ it is all but folly ; yet as the marks of a king’s 
favor, such honors are precious.” 

As to what a king’s favor itself might be worth, that 
my lord of Glamorgan lived to learn. 

“ It is I who pay for them,” said his wife. 

“ How so, my dove?” 

“ Do they not cost me thee, Herbert — and cost me 
very dear ? Art not ever from my sight ? Wish I not 
often as I lie awake in the dark that we were all in heaven 
and well over with the foolery of it ? The angels keep 
Molly in mind of us !” 

“ Yes, my Peggy, it is hard on thee, and hard on me 
too,” said the earl tenderly, “ yet not so hard as upon our 
liege lord the king, who selleth his plate and jewels.” 

“ Pooh ! what of that then, Herbert ? An he would 
leave me thee, he might have all mine, and welcome ; for 
thou knowest, Ned, I but hold them for thee to sell when 
thou wilt.” 

“ I know ; and the time may come, though, thank God, 
it is not yet. — What wouldst thou say, countess, if with 
all thy honors thou did yet come to poverty ? Canst be 
poor and merry, think’st thou ?” 

“ So thou wert with me, Herbert — Glamorgan, I would 
say, but my lips frame not themselves to the word. I 
like not the title greatly, but when it means thee to me, 
then shall I love it.” 

“ Art thou poor, yet hast thou golden slumbers ? 

O sweet content !” 

— sang the earl in a mellow tenor voice. 

“ My lord, an’ I have leave to speak,” said Dorothy, 
“ did you not say the diamond in that ring Richard 
Heywood sent me was of some worth?” 


388 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


“ I did, cousin. It is a stone of the finest water, and 
of good weight, though truly I weighed it not.” 

“ Then would I cast it in the king’s treasury, an’ if 
your lordship would condescend to be the bearer of such 
a small offering.” 

“ No, child : the king robs not orphans.” 

“ Did the king of kings rob the poor widow that cast 
in her two mites, then ?” 

“ No ; but perhaps the priests did. Still, as I say, the 
hour may come when all our mites may be wanted, and 
thine be accepted with the rest, but my father and I have 
yet much to give, and shall have given it before that 
hour come. Besides, as to thee, Dorothy, what would 
that handsome roundhead of thine say if, instead of 
keeping well the ring he gave thee, thou had turned it 
to the use he liked the least ?” 

“ He will never ask me concerning it,” said Dorothy, 
with a faint smile. 

“ Be not over sure of it, child. My lady asks me 
many things I never thought to tell her before the priest 
made us one. Dorothy, I have no right and no wish to 
spy into thy future, and fright thee with what, if it come 
at all, will come peacefully as June weather; I have not 
constructed thy horoscope to cast thy nativity, and there- 
fore I speak as one of the ignorant ; but let me tell thee, 
for I do say it confidently, that if these wars were once 
over, and the king had his own again, there will be few 
men in his three kingdoms so worthy of the hand and 
heart of Dorothy Vaughan as that same roundhead 
fellow, Richard Heywood. I would to God he were as 
good a catholic as he is a mistaken puritan ! — And now, 
my lady, may I not send thy maiden from us, for I would 
talk with thee alone of certain matters — not from distrust 
of Dorothy, but that they are not my own to impart, and 
therefore I pray her absence.” 


GLAMORGAN. 


389 


The parliament having secured the assistance of the 
Scots, and their forces having, early in the year, entered 
England, the king on his side was now meditating an 
attempt to secure the assistance of the Irish catholics, to 
which the devotion of certain of the old catholic houses 
at home encouraged him. But it was a game of terrible 
danger, for if he lost it, he lost everything; and that it 
should transpire before maturity would be to lose it 
absolutely ; for the Irish catholics had, truly or falsely, 
been charged with such enormities during the rebellion, 
that they had become absolutely hateful in the eyes of 
all English protestants, and any alliance with them must 
cost him far more in protestants than he could gain by it 
in catholics. It was necessary therefore that he should 
go about it with the utmost caution ; and indeed in his 
whole management of it, the wariness far exceeded the 
dignity, and was practiced at the expense of his best 
friends. But the poor king was such a believer in his 
father’s pet doctrine of the divine right of his inheritance, 
that not only would he himself sacrifice everything to 
the dim shadow of royalty which usurped the throne of 
his conscience, but would, without great difficulty or 
compunction, although not always without remorse, ac- 
cept any sacrifice which a subject might have devotion 
enough to bring to the altar before which Charles Stuart 
acted as flamen. 

In this my story of hearts rather than fortunes, it is 
not necessary to follow the river of public events through 
many of its windings, although every now and then my 
track will bring me to a ferry where the boat bearing my 
personages will be seized by the force of the current, and 
carried down the stream while crossing to the other bank. 

It must have been, I think, in view of his slowly 
maturing intention to employ lord Herbert in a secret 
mission to Ireland with the object above mentioned, that 


390 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


the king had sought to bind him yet more closely to 
himself by conferring on him the title of Glamorgan. It 
was not however until the following year, when his 
affairs seemed on the point of becoming desperate, that 
he proceeded, possibly with some protestant compunc- 
tions, certainly with considerable protestant apprehen* 
sion, to carry out his design. Towards this had pointed 
the relaxation of his measures against the catholic rebels 
for some time previous, and may to some have indicated 
hopes entertained of them. It must be remembered that 
while these catholics united to defend the religion of 
their country, they, like the Scots who joined the parlia- 
ment, professed a sincere attachment to their monarch, 
and in the persons of their own enemies had certainly 
taken up arms against many of his. 

Meantime the Scots had invaded England, and the 
parliament had largely increased their forces in the hope 
of a decisive engagement; but the king refused battle 
and gained time. In the north, prince Rupert made 
some progress, and brought on the battle of Marston 
moor, where the victory was gained by Cromwell, after all 
had been regarded as lost by the other parliamentary gen- 
erals. On the other hand the king gained an important 
advantage in the west country over Essex and his army. 

The trial and execution of Laud, who died in the 
beginning of the following year, obeying the king rather 
than his rebellious lords, was a terrible sign to the house 
of Raglan of what the presbyterian party was capable of. 
But to Dorothy it would have given a yet keener pain 
had she not begun to learn that neither must the ex- 
cesses of individuals be attributed to their party, nor 
those of his party taken as embodying the mind of every 
one who belongs to it. At the same time the old insu- 
perable difficulty returned : how could Richard belong 
to such a party ? 


CHAPTER XLII. 


A NEW SOLDIER. 

M OMENTS had scarcely passed after Dorothy left 
him at the fountain ere Scudamore grievously 
repented of having spoken to her in such a manner, and 
would gladly have offered apology and what amends he 
might. 

But Dorothy, neither easily moved to wrath, nor yet 
given to the nourishing of active resentment, was not 
therefore at all the readier to forget the results of moral 
difference, or to permit any nearer approach on the part 
of one such as her cousin had shown himself. As long 
as he continued so self-serene and unashamed, what 
satisfaction to her or what good to him could there be in 
it, even were he to content himself with the cousinly 
friendship which, as soon as he was capable of it, she 
was willing to afford him ? As it was now, she granted 
him only distant recognition in company, neither seeking 
nor avoiding him, and as to all opportunity of private 
speech entirely shunning him. For some time, in the 
vanity of his experience, he never doubted that these 
were only feminine arts, or that when she judged him 
sufficiently punished, she would relax the severity of her 
behavior and begin to make him amends. But this 
demeanor of hers endured so long, and continued so 
uniform, that at length he began to doubt the universal- 
ity of his experience, and to dread lest the maiden 
should actually prove what he had never found maiden 
before, inexorable. He did not reflect that he had given 
her no ground whatever for altering her judgment or 


392 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


feeling with regard to him. But in truth her thoughts 
rarely turned to him at all, and while his were haunting 
her as one who was taking pleasure in the idea that she 
was making him feel her resentment, she was simply 
forgetting him, busy perhaps with some self-offered ques- 
tion that demanded an answer, or perhaps brooding a 
little over the past, in which the form of Richard now 
came and went at its will. 

So long as Rowland imagined the existence of a quar- 
rel he imagined therein a bond between them ; when he 
became convinced that no quarrel, only indifference, or 
perhaps despisal, separated them, he began again to 
despair, and felt himself urged once more to speak. 
Seizing therefore an opportunity in such manner that 
she could not escape him without attracting very unde- 
sirable attention, he began a talk upon the old basis. 

“Wilt thou then never forgive me more, Dorothy ?” he 
said humbly. 

“For what, Mr. Scudamore?” 

“ I mean for offending thee with rude words.” 

“Truly I have forgotten them.” 

“Then shall we be friends?” 

“Nay, that follows not.” 

“What quarrel then hast thou with me?” 

“ I have no quarrel with thee ; yet is there one thing I 
cannot forgive thee.” 

“ And what is that, cousin ? Believe me I know not. 
I need but to know, and I will humble myself.” 

“ That would serve nothing, for how should I forgive 
thee for being unworthy? For such thing there is no 
forgiveness. Cease to be unworthy, and then is there 
nothing to forgive. I were an unfriendly friend, Row- 
land, did I befriend the man who befriendeth not him- 
self.” 

“I understand thee not, cousin.” 


A NEPV SOLDIER. 393 

“ And I understand not thy not understanding. There- 
fore there can be no communion between us.” 

So saying Dorothy left him to what consolation he 
could find in such china-pastoral abuse as the gallants 
of the day would, with the aid of poetic penny-trumpet, 
cast upon offending damsels — Daphnes and Chloes, and, 
in the mood, heathen shepherdesses in general. But, 
fortunately for himself, how great soever had been the 
freedom with which he had lost and changed many a 
foolish liking, he found, let his hopelessness or his offense 
be what it might, he had not the power to shake himself 
free from the first worthy passion ever roused in him. 
It had struck root below the sandy upper stratum of his 
mind into a clay soil beneath, where at least it was able 
to hold, and whence it could draw a little slow reluctant 
nourishment. 

During his poetic anger, he wrote no small amount of, 
fair verse, tried by the standard of Cowley, Carew, and 
Suckling, — so like theirs indeed that the best of it might 
have passed for some of their worst, although there was 
not in it all a single phrase to remind one of their best. 
But when the poetic spring began to run dry, he fell 
once more into a sort of willful despair, and disrelished 
everything, except indeed his food and drink — so much 
so that his master perceiving his altered cheer, one day 
addressed him to know the cause. 

“What aileth thee, Rowland?” he said kindly. “For 
this se’ennight past, thou lookest like one that oweth the 
hangman his best suit.” 

“I rust, my lord,” said Rowland, with a tragic air of 
discontent. 

The notion had arisen in his foolish head that the way 
to soften the heart of Dorothy would be to ride to the 
wars, and get himself slain, or, rather, severely but not 
mortally wounded. Then he would be brought back to 


394 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL . 


Raglan, and, thinking he was going to die, Dorothy 
would nurse him, and then she would be sure to fall in 
love with him. Yes — he would ride forth on the fellow 
Hey wood’s mare, seek him in the field of battle, and slay 
him, but be himself thus grievously wounded. 

“I rust, my lord!” he said briefly. 

“ Ha ! thou wouldst to the wars ! I like thee for that, 
boy. Truly the king wanteth soldiers, and that more 
than ever. Thou art a good cupbearer, but I will do 
my best to savor my claret without thee. Thou shalt to 
the king, and what poor thing my word may do for thee 
shall not be wanting.” 

Scudamore had expected opposition, and was a little 
nonplussed. He had judged himself essential to his 
master’s comfort, and had even hoped he might set 
Dorothy to use her influence towards reconciling him to 
remain at home. But although self-indulgent and lazy, 
Scudamore was constitutionally no coward, and had 
never had any experience to give him pause: he did not 
know what an ugly thing a battle is after it is over, and 
the mind has leisure to attend to the smarting of the 
wounds. 

“I thank your lordship with all my heart,” he said, 
putting on an air of greater satisfaction than he felt, 
“and with your lordship’s leave would prefer a further 
request.” 

“Say on, Rowland. I owe thee something for long 
and faithful service. An’ I can, I will.” 

“ Give me the roundhead’s mare that I may the better 
find her master.” 

For Lady was still within the walls. The marquis 
could not restore her, but neither could he bring himself 
to use her, cherishing the hope of being one day free to 
give her back to a reconciled subject. But alas ! there 
were very few horses now in Raglan stalls. 


A NEW SOLDIER . 


395 


“No, Rowland,” he said; “thou art the last who 
ought to get any good of her. It were neither law nor 
justice to hand the stolen goods to the thief.” 

He sat silent, and Rowland, not very eager, stood 
before him in silence also, meaning it to be read as indi- 
cating that to the wars except on that mare’s back he 
would not ride. But the thought of the marquis had 
taken another turn. 

“ Thou shalt have her, my boy. Thou shalt not rust 
at home for the sake of a gouty old man and his claret. 
But ere thou go, I will write out certain maxims for thy 
following both in the field and in quarters. Ere thou 
ride, look well to thy girths, and as thou ridest say thy 
prayers, for it pleaseth not God that every man on the 
right side should live, and thou mayst find the presence 
in which thou standest change suddenly from that of 
mortal man to that of living God. I say nothing of 
orthodoxy, for truly I am not one to think that because 
a man hath been born a heretic, which lay not in his 
choice, and hath not been of his parents taught in the 
truth, that therefore he must howl for ever. Not while 
blessed Mary is queen of heaven, will all the priests in 
Christendom persuade me thereof. Only be thou fully 
persuaded in thine own mind, Rowland, for if thou cared 
not, that were an evil thing indeed. And of all things, 
my lad, remember this, that a weak blow were ever 
better unstruck. Go now to the armorer, and to him 
deliver my will that he fit thee out as a cuirassier for 
his majesty’s service. I can give thee no rank, for I 
have no regiment in the making at present, but it may 
please his majesty to take care of thee, and give thee a 
place in my lord Glamorgan’s regiment of body-guards.” 

The prospect thus suddenly opened to Scudamore of 
a wider life and greater liberty, might have dazzled many 
a nobler nature than his. Lord Worcester saw the light 


396 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


in his eyes, and as he left the room gazed after him with 
pitiful countenance. 

“ Poor lad ! poor lad !” he said to himself ; “ I hope I 
see not the last of thee ! God forbid ! But here thou 
didst but rust, and it were a vile thing in an old man to 
infect a youth with the disease of age.” 

Rowland soon found the master of the armory, and 
with him crossed to the keep, where it lay, above the 
workshop. At the foot of the stair he talked loud in the 
hope that Dorothy might be with the fire-engine, which 
he thought he heard at work, and would hear him. 
Having chosen such pieces as pleased his fancy, and 
needed but a little of the armorer’s art to render them 
suitable, he filled his arms with them, and following the 
master down, contrived to fall a little behind, so that he 
should leave the tower before him, when he dropped 
them all with a huge clatter at the foot of the stair. The 
noise was sufficient, for it brought out Dorothy. She 
gazed for a moment as, pretending not to have seen her, 
he was picking them up with his back towards her. 

“Do I see thee arming at length, cousin?” she said. 
“I congratulate thee.” 

She held out her hand to him. He took it and stared. 
The reception of his noisy news was different from what 
he had been vain enough to hope. So little had Doro- 
thy’s behavior in the capture of Richard enlightened 
him as to her character ! 

“ Thou wouldst have me slain then to be rid of me, 
Dorothy ?” he gasped. 

“ I would have any man slain where men fight,” 
returned Dorothy, “ rather than idling within stone 
walls !” 

“ Thou art hard hearted, Dorothy, and knowest not 
what love is, else wouldst thou pity me a little.” 

“ What ! art afraid, cousin ?” 


A NEW SOLDIER. 397 

“ Afraid ! I fear nothing under heaven but thy cruelty, 
Dorothy.” 

“ Then what wouldst thou have me pity thee for?” 

“ I would, an’ I had dared, have said — Because I must 
leave thee. But thou wouldst mock at that, and therefore 
I say instead — Because I shall never return ; for I see 
well that thou never hast loved me even a little.” 

Dorothy smiled. 

“An’ I had loved thee, cousin,” she rejoined, “ I had 
never let thee rest, or left soliciting thee, until thou hadst 
donned thy buff coat and buckled on thy spurs and 
departed to be a man among men, and no more a boy 
among women.” 

So saying she returned to her engine, which all the 
time had been pumping and forcing with fiery inspir- 
ation. 

Scudamore mounted and rode, followed by one of the 
grooms. He found the king at Wallingford, presented 
the marquis’s letter, proffered his services, and was at 
once placed in attendance on his majesty’s person. 

In the eyes of most of his comrades the mare he rode 
seemed too light for cavalry work, but she made up in 
spirit and quality of muscle for lack of size, and there 
was not another about the king to match in beauty the 
little black Lady. Sweet-tempered and gentle although 
nervous and quick, and endowed with a rare docility and 
a faith which supplied courage, it was clear, while noth- 
ing was known of her pedigree, both from her form and 
her nature, that she was of Arab descent. No feeling of 
unreality in his possession of her intruding to disturb his 
satisfaction in her, Scudamore became very fond of her. 
Having joined the army, however, only after the second 
battle of Newbury, he had no chance till the following 
summer of learning how she bore herself in the field. 


CHAPTER XL/If. 


LADY AND BISHOP, 

I N the meantime a succession of events had contributed 
to enhance the influence of Cromwell in the parlia- 
ment, and his position and power in the army. He was 
now, therefore, more able to put in places of trust such 
men as came nearest his own way of thinking, and 
amongst the rest Roger Heywood, whom, once brought 
into the active service for which modesty had made him 
doubt his own fitness, he would not allow to leave it 
again, but made colonel of one of his favorite regiments 
of horse, with his son as major. 

Richard continued to ride Bishop, which became at 
length famous for courage, as he had become at once for 
ugliness. Fortunately they found that he had developed 
friendly feelings towards one of the mares of the troop, 
never lashing out when she happened to be behind him ; 
so they gave her that place, and were freed from much 
anxiety. Still the rider on each side of him had to keep 
his eyes open, for every now and then a sudden fury of 
biting would seize him, and bring chaos in the regiment 
for a moment or two. When his master was made an 
officer, the brute’s temptations probably remained the 
same, but his opportunities of yielding to them became 
considerably fewer. 

It was strange company in whieh Richard rode. 
Nearly all were of the independent party in religious 
polity, all holding, or imagining they held, the same or 
nearly the same tenets. The opinions of most of them, 


LADY AND BISHOP. 


309 


however, were merely the opinions of the man to whose 
influences they had been first and principally subjected ; 
to say what their belief was, would be to say what they 
were, which is deeper judgment than a man can reach. 
In Roger Heywood and his son dwelt a pure love of 
liberty ; the ardent attachment to liberty which most of 
the troopers professed, would have prevented few of them 
indeed from putting a quaker in the stocks, or perhaps 
whipping him, had such an obnoxious heretic as a quaker 
been at that time in existence. In some was the devoutest 
sense of personal obligation, and the strongest religious 
feeling : in others was nothing but talk, less injurious 
than some sorts of pseudo-religious talk in that it was a 
jargon admitting of much freedom of utterance and 
reception, mysterious symbols being used in commonest 
interchange. That they all believed earnestly enough to 
fight for their convictions, will not go very far in proof 
of their sincerity even, for to most of them fighting came 
by nature, and was no doubt a great relief to the much 
oppressed old Adam not yet by any means dead in them. 

At length the king led out his men for another 
campaign, and was followed by Fairfax and Cromwell 
into the shires of Leicester and Northampton. Then 
came the battle at the village of Naseby. 

Prince Rupert, whose folly so often lost what his 
courage had gained, having defeated Ireton and his horse, 
followed them from the field, while Cromwell with his 
superior numbers turned sir Marmaduke Langdale’s 
flank, and thereby turned the scale of victory. 

But sir Marmaduke and his men fought desperately, 
and while the contest was yet undecided, the king saw 
that Rupert, returned from the pursuit, was attacking the 
enemy’s artillery, and dispatched Rowland in hot haste 
to bring him to the aid of sir Marmaduke. 

The straightest line to reach him lay across a large 


400 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


field to the rear of sir Marmaduke’s men. As he went 
from behind them, Richard caught sight of him and his 
object together, struck spurs into Bishop’s flanks, bored 
him through a bull-fence, was in the same field with 
Rowland, and tore at full speed to head him off from the 
prince. 

Rowland rode for some distance without perceiving 
that he was followed : if Richard could but get within 
pistol-shot of him, for alas, he seemed to be mounted on 
the fleeter animal! Heavens! — could it be? Yes, it 
was ! it was his own lost Lady the cavalier rode ! For a 
moment his heart beat so fast that he felt as if he should 
fall from his horse. 

Rowland became aware that he was pursued, but at 
the first glimpse of the long, low, rat-like animal on which 
the roundhead came floundering after him, burst into a 
laugh of derision, and jumping a young hedge found him- 
self in a clayish fallow, which his mare found heavy. 
Soon Richard jumped the hedge also, and immediately 
Bishop had the advantage. But now, beyond the tall 
hedge they were approaching, they heard the sounds of 
the conflict near : there was no time to lose. Richard 
breathed deep, and uttered a long, wild, peculiar cry. 
Lady started, half-stopped, raised her head high and 
turned round her ears. Richard cried again. She 
wheeled, and despite spur and rein, though the powerful 
bit with which Rowland rode her seemed to threaten 
breaking her jaw, bore him, at short deer-like bounds, 
back towards his pursuer. 

Not until the mare refused obedience did Rowland 
begin to suspect who had followed him. Then a vague 
recollection of something Richard had said the night he 
carried him home to Raglan, crossed his mind, and he 
grew furious. But in vain he struggled with the mare, 
and all the time Richard kept plowing on towards them. 


LADY AND BISHOP. 


401 


At length he saw Rowland take a pistol from his holster. 
Instinctively Richard did the same, and when he saw 
him raise the butt-end to strike her on the head, fired — 
and missed, but saved Lady the blow, and ere Rowland 
recovered from the start it gave him to hear the bullet 
whistle past his ear, uttered another equally peculiar but 
different cry. Lady reared, plunged, threw her heels in 
the air, emptied her saddle, and came flying to Richard. 

But now arose a fresh anxiety : — what if Bishop should, 
as was most likely, attack the mare? At her master’s 
word, however, she stood, a few yards off, and with 
arched neck and forward-pricked ears, waited, while 
Bishop, moved possibly with admiration of the manner 
in which she had unseated her rider, scanned her with 
no malign aspect. 

By this time Rowland had got upon his feet, and 
mindful of his duty, hopeful also that Richard would be 
content with his prize, set off as hard as he could run 
for a gap he spied in the hedge. But in a moment 
Bishop, followed by Lady, had headed him. 

“Thou wert better cry quarter,” said Richard. 

The reply was a bullet, that struck Bishop below the 
ear. He stood straight up, gave one yell, and tumbled 
over. Scudamore ran towards the mare, hoping to catch 
her and be off ere the roundhead could recover himself. 
But, although Bishop had fallen on his leg, Richard was 
unhurt. He lay still and watched. Lady seemed bewil- 
dered, and Rowland coming softly up, seized her bridle, 
and sprung into the saddle. The same moment Richard 
gave his cry a second time, and again up went Rowland 
in the air, and Lady came trotting daintily to her master, 
scared, but obedient. Rowland fell on his back, and 
before he came to himself, Richard had drawn his leg 
from under his slain charger, and his sword from its 
sheath. And now first he perceived who his antagonist 


402 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


was, and a pang went to his heart at the remembrance of 
his father’s words. 

“ Mr. Scudamore,” he cried, “I would thou hadst not 
stolen my mare, so that I might fight with thee in a 
Christian fashion.” 

“Roundhead scoundrel!” gasped Scudamore, wild 
with wrath. “Thy unmannerly varlet tricks shall cost 
thee dear. Thou a soldier ? A juggler with a mounte- 
bank jade — a vile hackney which thou hast taught to 
caper ! A soldier indeed !” 

“A soldier and seatless!” returned Richard. “A 
soldier and rail ! A soldier and steal my mare, then 
shoot my horse ! Bah ! An’ the rest were like thee, we 
might take the field with dog-whips.” 

Scudamore drew a pistol from his belt, and glanced 
towards the mare. 

“An’ thou lift thine arm, I will kill thee,” cried Rich- 
ard. “ What ! Shall a man not teach his horse lest the 
thief should find him not broke to his taste ? Besides, 
did I not give thee warning while yet I judged thee an 
honest man, and a thief but in jest ? Go thy ways. I 
shall do my country better service by following braver 
men than by taking thee. Get thee back to thy master. 
An’ I killed thee, I should do him less hurt than I 
would. See yonder how thy master’s horse do knot and 
scatter !” 

He approached Lady to mount and ride away. 

But Rowland, who had now with the help of his anger 
recovered from the effects of his fall, rushed at Richard 
with drawn sword. The contest was brief. With one 
heavy blow that beat down his guard and wounded him 
severely in the shoulder, dividing his collar-bone, for he 
was but lightly armed, Richard stretched his antagonist 
on the ground; then seeing prince Rupert’s men return- 
ing, and sir Marmaduke’s in flight and some of them 


LADY AND BISHOP. 


403 


coming his way, he feared being surrounded, and leaping 
into the saddle, flew as if the wind were under him back 
to his regiment, reaching it just as in the first heat of 
pursuit Cromwell called them back, and turned them 
upon the rear of the royalist infantry. 

This decided the battle. Ere Rupert returned, the 
affair was so hopeless that not even the entreaties of the 
king could induce his cavalry to form again and charge. 

His majesty retreated to Leicester and Hereford. 


CHAPTER XL/V. 


THE KING. 

S OME months before the battle of Naseby, which was 
fought in June, early, that is, in the year 1645, the 
plans of the king having now ripened, he gave a secret 
commission for Ireland to the earl of Glamorgan, with 
immense powers, among the rest that of coining money, 
in order that he might be in a position to make proposals 
towards certain arrangements with the Irish catholics, 
which, in view of the prejudices of the king’s protestant 
council, it was of vital importance to keep secret. Gla- 
morgan therefore took a long leave of his wife and 
family, and in the month of March set out for Dublin. 
At Caernarvon, they got on board a small bark, laden 
with corn, but, in rough weather that followed, were 
cast ashore on the coast of Lancashire. A second at- 
tempt failed also, for, pursued by a parliament vessel, 
they were again compelled to land on the same coast. 
It was the middle of summer before they reached 
Dublin. 

During this period there was of course great anxiety 
in Raglan, the chief part of which was lady Glamorgan’s. 
At times she felt that but for the sympathy of Dorothy, 
often silent but always ministrant, she would have broken 
down quite under the burden of ignorance and its at- 
tendant anxiety. 

In the prolonged absence of her husband, and the 
irregularity of tidings, for they came at uncertain as well 
as wide intervals, her yearnings after her vanished Molly, 
which had become more patient, returned with all their 


THE KING . 


405 


early vehemence, and she began to brood on the meeting 
beyond the grave of which her religion waked her hope. 
Nor was this all: her religion itself grew more real; for 
although there is nothing essentially religious in thinking 
of the future, although there is more of the heart of 
religion in the taking of strength from the love of God 
to do the commonest duty, than in all the longing for a 
blessed hereafter of which the soul is capable, yet the 
love of a little child is very close to the love of the great 
Father; and the loss that sets any affection aching and 
longing, heaves, as on a wave from the very heart of the 
human ocean, the laboring spirit up towards the source 
of life and restoration. In like manner, from their com- 
mon love to the child, and their common sense of loss in 
her death, the hearts of the two women drew closer to 
each other, and protestant mistress Dorothy was able to 
speak words of comfort to catholic lady Glamorgan, 
which the hearer found would lie on the shelf of her 
creed none the less quietly that the giver had lifted them 
from the shelf of hers. 

One evening, while yet lady Glamorgan had had no 
news of her husband’s arrival in Ireland, and the bright 
June weather continued clouded with uncertainty and 
fear, lady Broughton came panting into her parlor with 
the tidings that a courier had just arrived at the main 
entrance, himself pale with fatigue, and his horse white 
with foam. 

“Alas ! alas !” cried lady Glamorgan, and fell back in 
her chair, faint w r ith apprehension, for what might not be 
the message he bore ? Ere Dorothy had succeeded in 
calming her, the marquis himself came hobbling in, with 
the news that the king was coming. 

“Is that all?” said the countess, heaving a deep sigh, 
while the tears rose and ran down her cheeks. 

“ Is that all !” repeated her father-in-law. “ How, my 


406 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


lady ! Is there then nobody in all the world but Gla- 
morgan? Verily I believe thou wouldst turn thy back 
on the angel Gabriel, if he dared appear before thee 
without thy Ned under his arm. Bless thy Irish heart! 
I never gave thee 7ny Ned that thou shouldst fall down 
and worship the fellow.” 

“Bear with me, sir,” she answered faintly. “It is but 
the pain here. Thou knowest I cannot tell but he lieth 
at the bottom of the Irish sea.” 

“If he do lie there, then lieth he in Abraham’s bosom, 
daughter, where I trust there is room for thee and me 
also. Thou rememberest how thy Molly said once to 
thee, * Madam, thy bosom is not so big as my lord Abra- 
ham’s. What a big bosom my lord Abraham must 
have !’ ” 

Lady Glamorgan laughed. 

“Come then — ‘to our work alive!’ which is now to 
receive his majesty,” said the marquis. “My wild Irish- 
woman, ” 

“Alas, my lord! tame enough now,” sighed the count- 
ess. 

“Not too tame to understand that she must represent 
her husband before the king’s majesty,” said lord Wor- 
cester. 

Lady Glamorgan rose, kissed her father-in-law, wiped 
her eyes, and said, 

“ Where, my lord, do you purpose lodging his majes- 
ty?” 

“ In the great north room, over the buttery, and next 
the picture gallery, which will serve his majesty to walk 
in, and the windows there have the finest prospect of all. 
I did think of the great tower, but well — the cham- 

ber there is indeed statelier, but it is gloomy as a dull 
twilight, while the one I intend him to lie in is bright as 
a summer morning. The tower chamber makes me think 


THE KING . 


407 


of all the lords and ladies that have died therein; the 
north room, of all the babies that have been born there.” 

“Spoken like a man!” murmured lady Glamorgan. 
“ Have you given directions, my lord?” 

“ I have sent for sir Ralph. Come with me, Margaret : 
you and Mary must keep your old father from blunder- 
ing. Run, Dorothy, and tell Mr. Delaware and Mr. 
Andrews that I desire their presence in my closet. I 
miss the rogue Scudamore. They tell me he hath done 
well, and is sorely wounded. He must feel the better 
for the one already, and I hope he will soon be nothing 
the worse for the other.” 

As he thus talked, they left the room and took their 
way to the study, where they found the steward waiting 
them. 

The whole castle was presently alive with preparations 
for the king’s visit. That he had been so sorely foiled 
of late, only roused in all the greater desire to receive 
him with every possible honor. Hope revived in lady 
Glamorgan’s bosom: she would take the coming of the 
king as a good omen for the return of her husband. 

Dorothy ran to do the marquis’s pleasure. As she 
ran, it seemed as if some new spring of life had burst 
forth in her heart. The king ! the king actually coming ! 
The God-chosen monarch of England! The head of 
the church ! The type of omnipotence ! The wronged, 
the saintly, the wise! He who fought with bleeding 
heart for the rights, that he might fulfill the duties to 
which he was born ! She would see him ! she would 
breathe the same air with him ! gaze on his gracious 
countenance unseen until she had imprinted every feat- 
ure of his divine face upon her heart and memory ! 
The thought was too entrancing. She wept as she ran 
to find the master of the horse and the master of the 
fish-ponds. 


408 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


At length on the evening of the third of July, a pur- 
suivant, accompanied by an advanced guard of horsemen, 
announced the king, and presently on the north road 
appeared the dust of his approach. Nearer they came, 
all on horseback, a court of officers. Travel-stained and 
weary, with foam-flecked horses, but flowing plumes, 
flashing armor, and ringing chains, they arrived at the 
brick gate, where lord Charles himself threw the two 
leaves open to admit them, and bent the knee before his 
king. As they entered the marble gate, they saw the mar- 
quis descending the great white stair to meet them, lean- 
ing for his lameness on the arm of his brother sir Thomas 
of Troy, and followed by all the ladies and gentlemen and 
officers in the castle, who stood on the stair while he 
approached the king’s horse, bent his knee, kissed the 
royal hand, and, rising with difficulty, for the gout had 
aged him beyond his years, said : 

“ Domine, non sum dignus.” 

I would I had not to give this brief dialogue ; but it 
stands on record, and may suggest something worth think- 
ing to him who can read it aright. 

The king replied : 

“ My lord, I may very well answer you again : I have 
not found so great faith in Israel; for no man would 
trust me with so much money as you have done.” 

“ I hope your majesty will prove a defender of the 
faith,” returned the marquis. 

The king then dismounted, ascended the marble steps 
with his host, nearly as stiff as he from his long ride, 
crossed the moat on the undulating drawbridge, passed 
the echoing gateway, and entered the stone court. 

The marquis turned to the king, and presented the 
keys of the castle. The king took them and returned 
them. 

“ I pray your majesty keep them in so good a hand. 


THE KING. 


409 


I fear that ere it be long I shall be forced to deliver them 
into the hands of who will spoil the compliment,” said 
the marquis. 

“ Nay,” rejoined his majesty, “ but keep them till the 
king of kings demand the account of your stewardship, 
my lord.” 

“ I hope your majesty’s name will then be seen where 
it stands therein,” said the marquis, “for so it will fare 
the better with the steward.” 

In the court, the garrison, horse and foot, a goodly 
show, was drawn up to receive him, with an open lane 
through, leading to the north-western angle, where was 
the stair to the king’s apartment. At the draw-well, 
which lay right in the way, and around which the men 
stood off in a circle, the king stopped, laid his hand on 
the wheel, and said gaily : 

“ My lord, is this your lordship’s purse?” 

“ For your majesty’s sake, I would it were,” returned 
the marquis. 

At the foot of the stair, on plea of his gout, he delivered 
his majesty to the care of lord Charles, sir Ralph 
Blackstone, and Mr. Delaware, who conducted him to 
his chamber. 

The king supped alone, but after supper, lady Glamor- 
gan and the other ladies of the family, having requested 
permission to wait upon him, were ushered into his 
presence. Each of them took with her one of her ladies 
in attendance, and Dorothy, being the one chosen by her 
mistress for that honor, not without the rousing of a 
strong feeling of injustice in the bosoms of the elder 
ladies, entered trembling behind her mistress, as if the 
room were a temple wherein no simulacrum but the 
divinity himself dwelt in visible presence. 

His majesty received them courteously, said kind things 
to several of them, but spoke and behaved at first with a 
s 


410 


S7\ GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


certain long-faced reserve rather than dignity, which, 
while it jarred a little with Dorothy’s ideal of the gracious- 
ness that should be mingled with majesty in the perfect 
monarch, yet operated only to throw her spirit back into 
that stage of devotion wherein, to use a figure of the 
king’s own, the awe overlays the love. 

A little later the marquis entered, walking slowly, 
leaning on the arm of lord Charles, but carrying in his 
own hands a present of apricots from his brother to the 
king. 

Meantime Dorothy’s love had begun to rise again from 
beneath her awe; but when the marquis came in, old 
and stately, reverend and slow, with a silver dish in each 
hand and a basket on his arm, and she saw him bow 
three times ere he presented his offering, himself serving 
whom all served, himself humble whom all revered, then 
again did awe nearly overcome her. When the king 
however, having graciously received the present, chose 
for each of the ladies one of the apricots, and coming to 
Dorothy last, picked out and offered the one he said was 
likest the bloom of her own fair cheek, gratitude again 
restored the sway of love, and in the greatness of the 
honor she almost let slip the compliment. She could 
not reply, but she looked her thanks, and the king 
doubtless missed nothing. 

The next day his majesty rested, but on following days 
rode to Monmouth, Chepstow, Usk, and other towns in 
the neighborhood, whose loyalty, thanks to the marquis, 
had as yet stood out. After dinner he generally paid 
the marquis a visit in the oak parlor, then perhaps 
had a walk in the grounds, or a game on the bowling 
green. 

But although the marquis was devoted to the king’s 
cause, he was not therefore either blinded or indifferent 
to the king’s faults, and as an old man who had long 


THE KING. 411 

been trying to grow better, he made up his mind to risk 
a respectful word in the matter of kingly obligation. 

One day, therefore, when his majesty entered the oak 
parlor, he found his host sitting by the table with his 
Gower lying open before him, as if he had been reading, 
which doubtless was the case. 

“ What book have you there, my lord ?” asked the king 
— while some of his courtiers stood near the door, and 
others gazed from the window on the moat and the swell- 
ing, towering mass of the keep. “ I like to know what 
books my friends read.” 

“Sir, it is old master John Gower’s book of verses, 
entitled Confessio Amantis ,” answered his lordship. 

“ It is a book I have never seen before,” said the king, 
glancing at its pages. 

“Oh,” returned the marquis, “it is a book of books, 
which if your majesty had been well versed in, it would 
have made you a king of kings.” 

“Why so, my lord ?” asked the king. 

“ Why,” said the marquis, “ here is set down how 
Aristotle brought up and instructed Alexander the Great 
in all his rudiments, and the principles belonging to a 
prince. Allow me, sir, to read you such a passage as 
will show your majesty the truth of what I say.” 

He opened the book and read : 

“ Among the vertues one is chefe, 

And that is trouthe, which is lefe 
To God and eke to man also. 

And for it hath been ever so, 

Taught Aristotle, as he well couth, 

To Alisaundre, how in his youth 
He shulde of trouthe thilke grace 
With all his hole herte embrace, 

So that his word be trewe and pleine 
Toward the world, and so certeine, 

That in him be no double speche. 

For if men shulde trouthe seche, 


{dear) 

{knew) 
{that same) 


412 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL . 


And found it nought within a king, 
It were an unfittende thing, 

The worde is token of that within ; 
There shall a worthy king begin 
To kepe his tunge and to be trewe, 
So shall his price ben ever neWe. 


“And here, sir, is what he saith as to the significance 
of the kingly crown, if your majesty will allow me to 
read it.” 

“ Read on, my lord ; all is good and true,” said the 
king. 


“ The gold betokneth excellence, 

That men shuld done him reverence 
As to her lege soveraine. 

The stones, as the bokes saine, 
Commended ben in treble wise. 

First, they ben hard, and thilke assise 
Betokneth in a king constaunce, 

So that there shall be no variaunce 
Be found in his condicion. 

And also by description 

The vertue, whiche is in the stones, 

A verray signe is for the nones 
Of that a king shall ben honest, 

And holde trewely his behest 
Of thing, which longeth to kinghede. 


( their liege ) 


( that attribute } 


{promise) 
( belongeth ) 


“And so on — for I were loth to weary your majesty — « 
of the color of the stones, and the circular form of the 
crown.” 

“ Read on, my lord,” said the king. 

Several passages, therefore, did the marquis pick out 
and read — amongst which probably were certain con- 
cerning flatterers — taking care still to speak of Alexander 
and Aristotle, and by no means of king and marquis, 
until at length he had “ read the king such a lesson,” as 
Dr. Bayly informs us, “ that the bystanders were amazed 
at his boldness.” 

“ My lord, have you got your lesson by heart, or speak 


THE KING. 413 

you out of the book?” asked the king, taking the 
volume. 

“Sir,” the marquis replied, “if you could read my 
heart, it may be you might find it there; or if your 
majesty please to get it by heart, I will lend you my 
book.” 

“ I would willingly borrow it,” said the king. 

“ Nay,” said the marquis, “ I will lend it to you upon 
these conditions : first that you read it, and second, that 
you make use of it.” 

Here, glancing round, well knowing the nature of the 
soil upon which his words fell, he saw “ some of the new 
made lords displeased, fretting and biting their thumbs,” 
and thus, therefore, resumed : 

“ But, sir, I assure you that no man was so much for 
the absolute power of a king as Aristotle. If your 
majesty will allow me the book again, I will show you 
one remarkable passage to that purpose.” 

Having searched the volume for a moment, and found 
it, he read as follows : 

“ Harpaghes first his tale tolde, 

And said, how that the strength of kinges 
Is mightiest of alle thinges. 

For king hath power over man, 

And man is he, which reson can, 

As he, which is of his nature 

The most noble creature 

Of alle tho that God hath wrought, 

And by that skill it seemeth nought, (for that reason ) 
He saith, that any erthly thing 
May be so mighty as a king. 

A king may spille, a king may save, 

A king may make of lorde a knave, 

And of a knave a lord also ; 

The power of a king stant so 
That he the lawes overpasseth, 

What he will make lasse, he lasseth, 

What he will make more, he moreth, 


414 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


And as a gentil faucon soreth, 

He tleeth that no man him reclameth. 

But he alone all other tameth, 

And stant him self of lawe fre. 

“ There, my liege ! So much for Aristotle and the 
kinghood ! But think not he taketh me with him all the 
way. By our Lady, I go not so far.” 

Lifting his head again, he saw, to his wish, that “ divers 
new made lords” had “slunk out of the room.” 

“ My lord,” said the king, “ at this rate you will drive 
away all my nobility.” 

“ I protest unto your majesty,” the marquis replied, 
“ I am as new a made lord as any of them all, but I was 
never called knave and rogue so much in all my life, as I 
have been since I received this last honor; and why 
should they not bear their shares?” 

In high good humor with his success, he told the story 
the same evening to Lady Glamorgan in Dorothy’s pres- 
ence. It gave her ground for thought: she wondered 
that the marquis should think the king required such 
lessoning. She had never dreamed that a man and his 
office are not only metaphysically distinct but may be 
morally separate things; she had hitherto taken the 
office as the pledge for the man, the show as the pledge 
for the reality ; and now therefore her notion of the king 
received a rude shock from his best friend. 

The arrival of his majesty had added to her labors, for 
now again horse must spout every day, — with no Molly 
to see it and rejoice. Every fountain rushed heaven- 
wards, “ and all the air ” was “ filled with pleasant noise 
of waters.” This required the fire-engine to be kept 
pretty constantly at work, and Dorothy had to run up 
and down the stair of the great tower several times a 
day. But she lingered on the top as often and as long 
as she might. 


THE KING . 


415 


One glorious July afternoon, gazing from the top of 
the keep, she saw his majesty, the marquis, some of the 
courtiers, and a Mr. Prichard of the neighborhood, on 
the bowling-green, having a game together. It was like 
looking at a toy-representation of one, for, so far below, 
everything was wondrously dwarfed and foreshortened, 
But certainly it was a pretty sight — the gay garments, 
the moving figures, the bowls rolling like marbles over 
the green carpet, while the sun, and the blue sky, and 
just an air of wind enough to turn every leaf into a lan- 
guidly waved fan, enclosed it in loveliness and filled it 
with life. It was like a picture from a camera obscura 
dropped right at the foot of the keep, for the surround- 
ing walk, moat, and sunk walk beyond, were, seen from 
that height, but enough to keep the bowling-green, which 
came to the edge of the sunk walk, twelve feet below it, 
from appearing to cling to the foundations of the tower. 
The circle of arches, filled with shell-work and statues 
of Roman emperors, which formed the face of the 
escarpment of the sunk walk, looked like a curiously cut 
fringe to the carpet. 

While Dorothy aloft was thus looking down and 
watching the game, 

“What a lovely prospect it is!” said his majesty 
below, addressing Mr. Prichard, while the marquis 
bowled. 

Making answer, Mr. Prichard pointed out where his 
own house lay, half hidden by a grove, and said — 

“ May it please your majesty, I have advised my lord 
to cut down those trees, so that when he wants a good 
player at bowls, he may have but to beckon.” 

“Nay,” returned the king, “he should plant more 
trees, that so he might not see thy house at all.” 

The marquis, who had bowled, and was coming to- 
wards them, heard what the king said, and fancying 


416 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


he aimed at the fault of the greedy buying up of 
land — 

“ If your majesty hath had enough of the game,” he 
said, “ and will climb with me to the top of the tower, I 
will show you what may do your mind some ease.” 

“ I should be sorry to set your lordship such an ardu- 
ous task,” replied the king. ‘‘But I am very desirous of 
seeing your great tower, and if you will permit me, I will 
climb the stair without your attendance.” 

“Sir, it will pleasure me to think that the last time 
ever I ascended those stairs, I conducted your majesty. 
For indeed it shall be the last time. I grow old.” 

As the marquis spoke, he led towards the twin-arched 
bridge over the castle-moat, then through the western 
gate, and along the side of the court to the gothic bridge, 
on their way dispatching one of his gentlemen to fetch 
the keys of the tower. 

“My lord,” said the king when the messenger had 
gone, “ there are some men so unreasonable as to make 
me believe that your lordship hath good store of gold 
yet left within the tower; but I knowing how I have 
exhausted you, could never have believed it until now I 
see you will not trust the keys with any but yourself.” 

“ Sir,” answered the marquis, “ I was so far from 
giving your majesty any such occasion of thought by this 
tender of my duty, that I protest unto you that I was 
once resolved that your majesty should have lain there, 
but that I was loath to commit your majesty to the 
tower.” 

“You are more considerate, my lord, than some of my 
subjects would be if they had me as much in their keep- 
ing,” answered the king sadly. — “ But what are those 
pipes let into the wall up there ?” he asked, stopping in 
the middle of the bridge and looking up at the keep. 

“Nay, sire, my son Edward must tell you that. He 


THE KING. 


417 


taketh strange liberties with the mighty old hulk. But I 
will not injure his good grace with your majesty by 
talking of that I understand not. I trust that one day, 
when you shall no more require his absence, you will yet 
again condescend to be my guest, when my son, by your 
majesty’s favor now my lord Glamorgan, will have things 
to show you that will delight your eyes to behold.” 

“ I have ere now seen something of his performance,” 
answered the king; “but these naughty times give room 
for nothing in that kind but guns and swords.” 

Leaving the workshop unvisited, his lordship took the 
king up the stair, and unlocking the entrance to the 
first floor, ushered him into a lofty vaulted chamber, old 
in the midst of antiquity, dark, vast, and stately. 

“This is where I did think to lodge your majesty,” he 
said, “but — but — your majesty sees it is gloomy, for the 
windows are narrow, and the walls are ten feet through.” 

“It maketh me very cold,” said the king, shuddering. 
“Good sooth, but I were loath to be a prisoner!” 

He turned and left the room hastily. The marquis 
rejoined him on the stair, and led him, two stories higher, 
to the armory, now empty compared to its former condi- 
tion, but still capable of affording some supply. The 
next space above was filled with stores, and the highest, 
was now kept clear for defense, for the reservoir so fidly 
occupied the top that there was no room for engines of 
any sort ; and indeed it took up so much of the story 
below with its depth that it left only such room as be- 
tween the decks of a man of war, rendering it hardly fit 
for any other use. 

Reaching the summit at length, the king gazed with 
silent wonder at the little tarn which lay there as on the 
crest of a mountain. But the marquis conducted him to 
the western side, and, pointing with his finger, said — 

*Sir, you see that line of trees, stretching across a 


418 ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 

neck of arable field, where to the right the brook catches 
the sun ?” 

“I see it, my lord,” answered the king. 

“ And behind it a house and garden, small but dainty?” 

“ Yes, my lord.” 

“ Then I trust your majesty will release me from sus- 
picion of being of those to whom the prophet Isaias 
saith, ‘ Vae qui conjungitis domun ad domun, et agrum 
agro copulatis usque ad terminum loci ; numquid habit- 
abitis vos soli in medio terrae?’ May it please your 
majesty, I planted those trees to hoodwink mine eyes 
from such temptations, hiding from them the vineyard of 
Naboth, lest they should act the Jezebel and tempt me 
to play the Ahab thereto. If I did thus when those 
trees and I were young, shall I do worse now that I 
stand with one foot in the grave, and purgatory itself in 
the other?” 

The king seemed to listen politely, but only listened 
half, and did not perceive his drift. He was looking at 
Dorothy where she stood at the opposite side of the 
reservoir, unable because of the temporary obstruction 
occasioned by certain alterations and repairs about the 
cocks now going on, to reach the stair without passing 
the king and the marquis. The king asked who she 
was; and the marquis, telling him a little about her, 
called her. She came, courtesied low to his majesty, 
and stood with beating heart. 

“I desire,” said the marquis, “thou shouldst explain 
to his majesty that trick of thy cousin Glamorgan, the 
water-shoot, and let him see it work.” 

“ My lord,” answered Dorothy, trembling betwixt de- 
votion and doubtful duty, “ it was the great desire of my 
lord Glamorgan that none in the castle should know the 
trick, as it pleases your lordship to call it.” 

“What, cousin! cannot his majesty keep a secret? 


THE KING. 419 

And doth not all that Glamorgan hath belong to the 
king ?” 

“ God forbid I should doubt either, my lord/’ an- 
swered Dorothy, turning very pale, and ready to sink, 
“ but it cannot well be done in the broad day without 
some one seeing. At night, indeed, ” 

“ Tut, tut ! it is but a whim of Glamorgan’s. Thou 
wilt not do a jot of ill to show the game before his 
majesty in the sunlight.” 

“My lord, I promised.” 

“ Here standeth who will absolve thee, child ! His 
majesty is paramount to Glamorgan.” 

“ My lord! my lord !” said Dorothy, almost weeping, 
“ I am bewildered and cannot well understand. But I 
am sure that if it be wrong, no one can give me leave to 
do it, or absolve me beforehand. God himself can but 
pardon after the thing is done, not give permission to do 
it. Forgive me, sire, but so master Matthew Herbert 
hath taught me.” 

“And very good doctrine, too,” said the marquis 
emphatically, “ let who will propound it. — Think you 
not so, sir ?” 

But the king stood with dull imperturbable gaze fixed 
on the distant horizon, and made no reply. An awkward 
silence followed. The king requested his host to con- 
duct him to his apartment. 

“ I marvel, my lord,” said his majesty as they went 
down the stair, seeing how lame his host was, “ that, as 
they tell me, your lordship drinks claret. All physicians 
say it is naught for the gout.” 

“ Sir,” returned the marquis, “ it shall never be said 
that I forsook my friend to pleasure my enemy.” 

The king’s face grew dark, for ever since the lecture 
for which he had made Gower the text-book, he had 
been ready to see a double meaning of rebuke in all the 


420 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


marquis said. He made no answer, avoided his attend- 
ants who waited for him in the fountain court, expecting 
him to go by the bell-tower, and, passing through the 
hall and the stone court, ascended to his room alone, 
and went into the picture gallery, where he paced up and 
down till supper time. 

The marquis rejoined the little company of his own 
friends who had left the bowling-green after him, and 
were now in the oak parlor. A little troubled at the 
king’s carriage towards him, he entered with a merrier 
bearing than usual. 

“ Well, gentlemen, how goes the bias?” he said gayly. 

“ We were but now presuming to say, my lord,” an- 
swered Mr. Prichard, “ that there are who would largely 
warrant that if you would you might be duke of Somer- 
set.” 

“ When I was earl of Worcester,” returned the mar- 
quis, “ I was well to do ; since I was marquis, I am 
worse by a hundred thousand pounds ; and if I should 
be a duke, I should be an arrant beggar. Wherefore I 
had rather go back to my earldom, than at this rate keep 
on my pace to the dukedom of Somerset.” 


CHAPTER XLV. 


THE KING AND THE MARQUIS. 

B ETWEEN the third of July, when he first came, and 
the fifteenth of September, when he last departed, 
the king went and came several times. During his last 
visit a remarkable interview took place between him and 
his host, the particulars of which are circumstantially 
given by Dr. Bayly in the little book he calls Certamen 
Religiosum : to me it falls to recount after him some of 
the said particulars, because, although Dorothy was 
brought but one little step within the sphere of the 
interview, certain results were which bore a large influ- 
ence upon her history. 

“ Though money came from him,” that is, the marquis, 
“ like drops of blood,” says Dr. Bayly, “ yet was he 
contented that every drop within his body should be let 
out,” if only he might be the instrument of bringing his 
majesty back to the bosom of the catholic church — a 
bosom which no doubt the marquis found as soft as it 
was capacious, but which the king regarded as a good 
deal resembling that of a careless nurse rather than 
mother — frized with pins, and here and there a cruel 
needle. Therefore, expecting every hour that the king 
would apply to him for more money, the marquis had 
resolved that, at such time as he should do so, he would 
make an attempt to lead the stray sheep within the fold 
— for the marquis was not one of those who regarded a 
protestant as necessarily a goat. 

But the king shrank from making the request in per- 


422 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


son, and having learned that the marquis had been at 
one point in his history under the deepest obligation to 
Dr. Bayly, who having then preserved both his lordship’s 
life and a large sum of money he carried with him, by 
“ concealing both for the space that the moon useth to 
be twice in riding of her circuit,” had thereafter become 
a member of his family and a sharer in his deepest confi- 
dence, greatly desired that the doctor should take the 
office of mediator between him and the marquis. 

The king’s will having been already conveyed to the 
doctor, in the king’s presence colonel Lingen came up 
to him and said, 

“ Dr. Bayly, the king, much wishing your aid in this 
matter, saith he delights not to be a beggar, and yet is 
constrained thereunto.” 

“ I am at his majesty’s disposal,” returned the doctor, 
“although I confess myself somewhat loath to be the 
beetle-head that must drive this wedge.” 

“ Nay,” said the colonel, “they tell me that no man 
can make a divorce between the Babylonish garment and 
the wedge of gold sooner than thyself, good doctor.” 

The end was that he undertook the business, though 
with reluctance — unwilling to be “ made an instrument 
to let the same horse bleed whom the king himself had 
found so free ” — and sought the marquis in his study. 

“ My lord,” he said, “ the thing that I feared is now 
fallen upon me. I am made the unwelcome messenger 
of bad news : the king wants money.” 

“ Hold, sir ; that’s no news,” interrupted the marquis. 
“ Go on with your business.” 

“ My lord,” said the doctor, “ there is one comfort 
yet, that, as the king is brought low, so are his demands, 
and, like his army, are come down from thousands to 
hundreds, and from paying the soldiers of his army, to 
buying bread for himself and his followers. My lord, it 


THE KING AND THE MARQUIS. 423 

is the king’s own expression, and his desire is but three 
hundred pound.” 

Lord Worcester remained a long time silent, and Dr. 
Bayly waited, “ knowing by experience, that in such 
cases it was best leaving him to himself, and to let that 
nature that was so good, work itself into an act of the 
highest charity, like the diamond which is only polished 
with its own dust.” 

“ Come hither — come nearer, my good doctor,” said 
his lordship at length : “ hath the king himself spoken 
unto thee concerning any such business ?” 

“ The king himself hath not, my lord, but others did, 
in the king’s hearing.” 

“ Might I but speak unto him, ” said the marquis. 

“ But I was never thought worthy to be consulted with, 
though in matters merely concerning the affairs of my 
own country ! — I would supply his wants, were they 
never so great, or whatsoever they were.” 

“ If the king knew as much, my lord, you might 
quickly speak with him,” remarked the doctor. 

“ The way to have him know so much is to have 
somebody to tell him of it,” said the marquis testily. 

“Will your lordship give me leave to be the informer?” 
asked the doctor. 

“ Truly I spake it to the purpose,” answered the mar- 
quis. 

Away ran the little doctor, ambling through the picture 
gallery, “ half going and half running,” like some short- 
winged bird — his heart trembling lest the marquis should 
change his mind and call him back, and so his pride in 
his successful mediation be mortified — to the king’s 
chamber, where he told his majesty, with diplomatic 
reserve, and something of diplomatic cunning, enhancing 
the difficulties, that he had perceived his lordship de- 
sired some conference with him, and that he believed, if 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


m 

(hi king granted such conference, he would find a more 
generous response to his necessities than perhaps he 
expected. The king readily consenting, the doctor went 
on to say, that his lordship much wished the interview 
that very night. The king asked how it could be man- 
aged, and the doctor told him the marquis had contrived 
it before bis majesty came to the castle, having for that 
reason appointed the place where they were for his bed- 
* y.amber, and not that in the great tower, which the 
marquis himself liked the best in the castle. 

“ I know my lord’s drift well enough,” said the king, 
smiling: “either he means to chide me, or else to con- 
vert me to his religion.” 

“I doubt not, sire,” returned the doctor, “ but your 
majesty is temptation-proof as well as correction-free, 
and will return the same man you go, having made a 
profitable exchange of gold and silver for words and 
sleep.” 

Upon Dr. Bayly’s report of his success, the marquis 
sent him back to tell the king that at eleven o’clock he 
would be waiting his majesty in a certain room to which 
the doctor would conduct him. 

This was the room the marquis’s father had occupied 
and in which he died, called therefore “ my lord Privy- 
seal’s chamber.” Since then the marquis had never 
allowed any one to sleep in it, hardly any one to go into 
it, whence it came that although all the rest of the castle 
was crowded this one room remained empty and fit for 
their purpose. 

To understand the precautions taken to keep their 
interview a secret, we must remember that, although he 
had not a better friend in all England, such reason had 
the king to fear losing his protestant friends from their 
jealousy of catholic influence, that he had never invited 
the marquin of Worcester to sit with him in council; and 


THE KING AND THE MARQUIS. 


425 


that the marquis on his part was afraid both of injuring 
the cause of the king, and of being himself impeached 
for treason. Should any of the king’s attendant lords 
discover that they were closeted together, he dreaded 
the suspicion and accusation of another Gowry conspira- 
cy even. His lordship therefore instructed Dr. Bayly to 
go, as the time drew nigh, to the drawing-room, which 
was next the marquis’s chamber, and the dining parlor, 
through both of which he must pass to reach the ap- 
pointed place, and clear them of the company which 
might be in them. The chaplain desiring to know how 
he was to manage it, so that it should not look strange 
and arouse suspicion, and what he should do if any were 
unwilling to go, 

“ I will tell you what you shall do,” said the marquis 
hastily, “ so that you shall not need to fear any such 
thing. Go unto the yeoman of the wine-cellar, and bid 
him leave the keys of the wine-cellar with you, and all 
that you find in your way, invite them down into the 
cellar, and show them the keys, and I warrant you, you 
shall sweep the room of them, if there were a hundred. 
And when you have done, leave them there.” 

But having thus arranged, the marquis grew anxious 
again. He remembered that it was not unusual to pass 
to the hall from the northern side of the fountain court, 
where were most of the rooms of the ladies’ gentlewomen, 
through the picture gallery, entering it by a passage and 
stair which connected the bell-tower with one of its deep 
window recesses, and leaving it by a door in the middle 
of the opposite side, admitting to a stair in the thickness 
of the wall — which led downwards, opening to the 
minstrels’ gallery on the left hand, and, a little further 
below, to the organ loft in the chapel on the right hand. 
It was not the least likely that any of the ladies or their 
attendants would be passing that way so late at night, 


426 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL , 


but there was a possibility, and that was enough, the 
marquis being anxious and nervous, to render him more 
so. 

There was, however, another and more threatening 
possibility of encounter. He remembered that Mr. Del- 
aware, the master of his horse, had lately removed to 
that part of the house ; and the fear came upon him lest 
his blind son, who frequently turned night into day in 
his love for the organ, and was uncertain in his move- 
ments between chapel and chamber, the direct way being 
that just described, should by evil chance appear at the 
very moment of the king’s passing, and alarm him — for 
through the gallery Dr. Bayly must lead his majesty to 
reach my lord Privy -seal’s chamber. The marquis, 
therefore, although reluctant to introduce another even 
to the externals of the plot, felt that the assistance of a 
second confidant was more than desirable, and, turning 
the matter over, could think of no one whom he could 
trust so well, and who at the same time would, if seen, 
be so little liable to the sort of suspicion he dreaded, as 
Dorothy. He therefore sent for her, told her as much 
as he thought proper, gave her the key of his private 
passage to the gallery, leading across the top of the hall- 
door, the only direct communication from the southern 
side of the castle, and generally kept closed, and directed 
her to be in the gallery ten minutes before eleven, to 
lock the door at the top of the stair leading down into 
the hall, and take her stand in the window at the foot of 
the stair from the bell-tower, where the door was without 
a lock, and see that no one entered — by order of the 
marquis for the king’s repose, enjoining upon her that, 
whatever she saw or heard from any other quarter, she 
must keep perfectly still, nor let any one discover that 
she was there. With these instructions his lordship, 
considerably relieved, dismissed her, and went to lie 


THE KING AND THE MARQUIS. 


427 


down upon his bed, and have a nap if he could. He 
had already given the chaplain the key of his chamber, 
the door of which he always locked, that he might enter 
and wake him when the appointed hour was at hand. 

As soon as he began to feel that eleven o’clock was 
drawing near, Dr. Bayly proceeded to reconnoiter. The 
marquis’s plan, although he could think of none better, 
was not altogether satisfactory, and it was to his relief 
that he found nobody in the dining room. When he 
entered the drawing-room, however, there, to his equal 
annoyance, he saw, in the light of one expiring candle, 
the dim figure of a lady : he could not offer her the keys 
of the wine-cellar ! What was he to do ? What could 
she be there for ? He drew nearer, and, with a positive 
pang of relief, discovered that it was Dorothy. A word 
was enough between them. But the good doctor was 
just a little annoyed that a second should share in the 
secret of the great ones. 

The next room was the antechamber to the marquis’s 
bedroom : timorously, on tiptoe, he stepped through it, 
fearful of waking the two young gentlemen — for Scuda- 
more’s place had been easily supplied — who waited upon 
his lordship. Opening the inner door as softly as he 
could, he crept in, and found the marquis fast asleep. 
So slowly, so gently did he wake him, that his lordship 
insisted he had not slept at all ; but when he told him 
that the time was come — 

“ What time ?” he asked. 

“ For meeting the king,” replied the doctor, 

“ What king ?” rejoined the marquis, in a kind of 
bewildered horror. 

The more he came to himself, the more distressed he 
seemed, and the more unwilling to keep the appointment 
he had been so eager to make, so that at length even 
Dr. Bayly was tempted to doubt something evil in the 


428 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL , 


“ design that carried with it such a conflict within the 
bosom of the actor.” It soon became evident however 
that it was but the dread of such possible consequences 
as I have already indicated that thus moved him. 

“Fie, fie!” he said; “I would to God I had let it 
alone.” 

“ My lord,” said the doctor, “ you know your own 
heart best. If there be nothing in your intentions but 
what is good and justifiable, you need not fear; if other- 
wise, it is never too late to repent.” 

“Ah, doctor!” returned the marquis with troubled 
look, “ I thought I had been sure of one friend, and that 
you would never have harbored the least suspicion of 
me. God knows my heart: I have no other intention 
towards his majesty than to make him a glorious man 
here, and a glorified saint hereafter.” 

“ Then, my lord,” said Dr. Bayly, “ shake off these 
fears together with the drowsiness that begat them. 
Honi soit qui mal y pense .” 

“Oh, but I am not of that order !” said the marquis ; 
“ but I thank God, I wear that motto about my heart, to 
as much purpose as they who wear it about their arms.” 

“ He then,” reports the doctor, “ began to be a little 
pleasant, and took a pipe of tobacco, and a little glass 
full of aqua mirabilis , and said, ‘ Come now, let us go in 
the name of God,’ crossing himself.” 

My love for the marquis has led me to recount this 
curious story with greater minuteness than is necessary 
to the understanding of Dorothy’s part in what follows, 
but the worthy doctor’s account is so graphic that even 
for its own sake, had it been fitting, I would gladly have 
copied it word for word from the Certamen Religiosum. 

It is indeed a strange story — king and marquis, at- 
tended by a doctor of divinity, of the faith of the one, 
but the trusted friend of the other, meeting — at midnight, 


THE KING AND THE MARQUIS, . 


429 


although in the house of the marquis — to discuss points 
of theology — both king and marquis in mortal terror of 
discovery. 

Meantime Dorothy had done as she had been ordered, 
had felt her way through the darkness to the picture- 
gallery, had locked the door at the top of the one stair, 
and taken her stand in the recess at the foot of the 
other — -in pitch darkness, close to the king’s bedchamber, 
for the gallery was but thirteen feet in width, keeping 
watch over him ! The darkness felt like awe around 
her. 

The door of the chamber opened : it gave no sound, 
but the glimmer of the night-light shone out. By that 
she saw a figure enter the gallery. The door closed 
softly and slowly, and all was darkness again. No sound 
of movement across the floor followed ; but she heard a 
deep sigh, as from a sorely burdened heart. Then, in 
an agonized whisper, as if wrung by torture from the 
depths of the spirit, came the words: “O Strafford, 
thou art avenged ! I left thee to thy fate, and God hath 
left me to mine. Thou didst go for me to the scaffold, 
but thou wilt not out of my chamber. O God, deliver 
me from blood-guiltiness.” 

Dorothy stood in dismay, a mere vessel containing a 
tumult of emotions. The king re-entered his chamber, 
and closed the door. The same instant a light appeared 
at the further end of the gallery — a long way off, and 
Dr. Bayly came, like a Will o’ the wisp, gliding from 
afar ; till, softly walking up, he stopped within a yard or 
two of the king’s door, and there stood, with his candle 
in his hand. His round face was pale that should have 
been red, and his small keen eyes shone in the candle 
light with mingled importance and anxiety. He saw 
Dorothy, but the only notice he took of her presence 
was to turn from her with his face towards the king’s 


430 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


door, so that his shadow might shroud the recess where 
she stood. 

A minute or so passed, and the king’s door reopened. 
He came out, said a few words in a whisper to his guide, 
and walked with him down the gallery, whispering as he 
went. 

Dorothy hastened to her chamber, threw herself on 
the bed, and wept. The king was cast from the throne 
of her conscience, but taken into the hospital of her 
heart. 

What followed between the king and the marquis 
belongs not to my tale. When, after a long talk, the 
chaplain had conducted the king to his chamber and 
returned to lord Worcester, he found him in the dark 
upon his knees. 


CHAPTER XL VI. 


GIFTS OF HEALING. 

S OON after the king’s departure, the marquis received 
from him a letter containing another addressed “ To 
our Attorney or Solicitor-General for the time being,” 
in which he commanded the preparation of a bill for his 
majesty’s signature, creating the marquis of Worcester 
duke of Somerset. The inclosing letter required, how- 
ever, that it should — “ be kept private, until I shall 
esteem the time convenient.” In the next year we have 
causes enough for the fact that the king’s pleasure never 
reached any attorney or solicitor-general for the time 
being. 

About a month after the battle of Naseby, and while 
yet the king was going and coming as regards Raglan, 
the wounded Rowland, long before he was fit to be 
moved from the farm-house where his servant had found 
him shelter, was brought home to the castle. Shafto, 
faithful as hare-brained, had come upon him almost 
accidentally, after long search, and just in time to save 
his life. Mrs. Watson received him with tears, and had 
him carried to the same turret-chamber whence Richard 
had escaped, in order that she might be nigh him. The 
poor fellow was but a shadow of his former self, and 
looked more likely to vanish than to die in the ordinary 
way. Hence he required constant attention — which was 
so far from lacking that the danger, both physical and 
spiritual, seemed rather to lie in over-service. Hitherto, 
of the family, it had been the marquis chiefly that spoiled 
him ; but now that he was so sorely wounded for the 


432 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


king and lay at death’s door, all the ladies of the castle 
were admiring, pitiful, tender, ministrant, paying him 
such attentions as nobody could be trusted to bear unin- 
jured except a doll or a baby. One might have been 
tempted to say that they sought his physical welfare at 
the risk of his moral ruin. But there is that in sickness 
which leads men back to a kind of babyhood, and while 
it lasts there is comparatively little danger. It is with 
returning health that the peril comes. Then self, and 
self-fancied worth, awake, and find themselves again, 
and the risk is then great indeed that all the ministra- 
tions of love be taken for homage at the altar of impor- 
tance. How often has not a mistress found that after 
nursing a servant through an illness, perhaps an old 
servant even, she has had to part with her for unendur- 
able arrogance and insubordination ? But present sick- 
ness is a wonderful antidote to vanity, and nourisher of 
the gentle primeval simplicities of human nature. So 
long as a man feels himself a poor creature, not only 
physically unable, but without the spirit to desire to act, 
kindness will move gratitude and not vanity. In Row- 
land’s case happily it lasted until something better was 
able to get up its head a little. But no one can predict 
what the first result of suffering will be, not knowing 
what seeds lie nearest the surface. Rowland’s self- 
satisfaction had been a hard pan beneath which lay 
thousands of germinal possibilities invaluable ; and now 
the result of its tearing up remained to be seen. If in 
such case Truth’s never-ceasing pull at the heart begin 
to be felt, allowed, considered ; if conscience begin, like 
a thing weary with very sleep, to rouse itself in motions 
of pain from the stiffness of its repose, then is there hope 
of the best. 

He had lost much blood, having lain a long time, as I 
say, in the fallow-field before Shafto found him, Qft- 


GIFTS OF HEALING . 


433 


recurring fever, extreme depression, and intermittent 
and doubtful progress life-wards followed. Through all 
the commotion of the king’s visits, the coming and 
going, the clang of hoofs and clanking of armor, the 
heaving of hearts and clamor of tongues, he lay lapped 
in ignorance and ministration, hidden from the world 
and deaf to the gnarring of its wheels, prisoned in a 
twilight dungeon, to which Richard’s sword had been 
the key. The world went grinding on and on, much the 
same, without him whom it had forgotten ; but the over- 
world remembered him, and now and then looked in at 
a window: all dungeons have one window which no 
gaoler and no tyrant can build up. 

The marquis went often to see him, full of pity for the 
gay youth thus brought low ; but he would lie pale and 
listless, now and then turning his eyes, worn large with 
the wasting of his face, upon him, but looking as if he 
only half heard him. His master grew sad about him. 
The next time his majesty came, he asked him if he 
remembered the youth, telling him how he had lain 
wounded ever since the battle at Naseby. The king 
remembered him well enough, but had never missed 
him. The marquis then told him how anxious he was 
about him, for that nothing woke him from the weary 
heartlessness into which he had fallen. 

“ I will pay him a visit,” said the king. 

“Sir, it is what I would have requested, had I not 
feared to pain your majesty,” returned the marquis. 

“ I will go at once,” said the king. 

When Rowland saw him, his face flushed, the tears 
rose in his eyes, he kissed the hand the king held out to 
him, and said feebly : — 

“ Pardon, sire : if I had rode better, the battle might 
have been yours. I reached not the prince.” 

“It is the will of God,” said the king, remembering 
T 


434 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


for the first time that he had sent him to Rupert. “ Thou 
didst thy best, and man can do no more.” 

“ Nay, sire, but an’ I had ridden honestly,” returned 

Rowland, “ 1 mean, had my mare been honestly 

come by, then had I done your majesty’s message.” 

“ How is that?” asked the king. 

“Ha!” said the marquis; “then it was Heywood met 
thee, and would have his own again? Told I not thee 
so ? Ah, that mare, Rowland ! that mare !” 

But Rowland had to summon all his strength to keep 
from fainting, for the blood had fled again to his heart, 
and could not reply. 

“ Thou didst thy duty like a brave knight and true, I 
doubt not,” said the king, kindly wishful to comfort 
him ; “ and that my word may be a true one,” he added, 
drawing his sword and laying it across the youth’s chest, 
“ although I cannot tell thee to rise and walk, I tell thee, 
when thou dost arise, to rise up Sir Rowland Scuda- 
more.” 

The blood rushed to sir Rowland’s face, but fled again 
as fast. 

“ I deserve no such honor, sire,” he murmured. 

But the marquis struck his hands together with pleas- 
ure, and cried, 

“ There, my boy ! There is a king to serve ! Sir 
Rowland Scudamore ! There is for thee ! And thy 
wife will be my lady ! Think on that !” 

Rowland did think on it, but bitterly. He summoned 
strength to thank his majesty, but failed to find anything 
courtier-like to add to the bare thanks. When his visit- 
ors left him, he sighed sorely, and said to himself, 

“ Honor without desert ! But for the roundhead’s 
taunts I might have run to Rupert and saved the day.” 

The next morning the marquis went again to see him. 

“ How fares sir Row! £id ?” he said. 


GIFTS OF HEALING . 


435 


“ My lord,” returned Scudamore, in beseeching tone, 
“break not my heart with honor unmerited.” 

“ How ! Darest thou, boy, set thy judgment against 
the king’s?” cried the marquis. “Sir Rowland thou 
art, and Sir Rowland will the archangel cry when he 
calls thee from thy last sleep.” 

“ To my endless disgrace,” added Scudamore. 

“ What ! hast not done thy duty ?” 

“I tried, but I failed, my lord.” 

“The best as often fail as the worst,” rejoined his 
lordship. 

“ I mean not merely that I failed of the end. That, 
alas ! I did. But I mean that it was by my own fault 
that I failed,” said Rowland. 

Then he told the marquis all the story of his encounter 
with Richard, ending with the words, 

“And now, my lord, I care no more for life.” 

“Stuff and nonsense!” exclaimed the marquis. 
“ Thinkest thou the roundhead would have let thee run 
to Rupert ? It was not to that end he spared thy life. 
Thy only chance was to fight him.” 

“ Does your lordship think so indeed ?” asked Row- 
land, with a glimmer of eagerness. 

“ On my soul I do. Thou art weak-headed from thy 
sickness and weariness.” 

“You comfort me, my lord — a little. But the stolen 
mare, my lord ? — — ” 

“ Ah ! there indeed I can say nothing. That was not 
well done, and evil came thereof. But comfort thyself 
that the evil is come and gone ; and think not that such 
chances are left to determine great events. Naseby fight 
had been lost, spite of a hundred messages to Rupert. — 
Not care for life, boy ! Leave that to old men like me. 
Thou must care for it, for thou hast many years before 
thee.” 


436 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


“But nothing to fill them with, my lord.” 

“ What meanest thou there, Rowland ? The king’s 
cause will yet prosper, and ” 

“Pardon me, my lord; I spoke not of the king’s 
majesty or his affairs. Hardly do I care even for them. 
It is a nameless weight, or rather emptiness, that 
oppresseth me. Wherefore is there such a world ? I ask, 
and why are men born thereinto ? Why should I live on 
and labor on therein? Is it not all vanity and vexation 
of spirit ? I would the roundhead had but struck a little 
deeper, and reached my heart.” 

“I admire at thee, Rowland. Truly my gout causeth 
me so great grief that I have much ado to keep my 
unruly member within bounds, but I never yet was 
aweary of my life, and scarce know what I should say to 
thee.” 

A pause followed. The marquis did not think what a 
huge difference there is between having too much blood 
in the feet and too little in the brain. 

“ I pray sir, can you tell me if mistress Dorothy 
knoweth it was before Hey wood I fell ?” said Rowland 
at length. 

“ I know not ; but methinks had she known, I should 
sooner have heard the thing myself. Who indeed should 
tell her, for Shafto knew it not ? And why should she 
conceal it ?” 

“ I cannot tell, my lord : she is not like other ladies.” 

“ She is like all good ladies in this, that she speaketh 
the truth : why then not ask her ?” 

“ I have had no opportunity, my lord. I have not 
seen her since I left to join the army.” 

“Tut, tut!” said his lordship, and frowned a little. 
“I thought not the damsel had been over nice. She 
might well have favored a wounded kpight with a 
visit.” 


GIFTS OF HEALING. 437 

“She is not to blame. It is my own fault,” sighed 
Rowland. 

The marquis looked at him for a moment pitifully, but 
made no answer, and presently took his leave. 

He went straight to Dorothy, and expostulated with 
her. She answered him no farther or otherwise than was 
simply duteous, but went at once to see Scudamore. 

Mrs. Watson was in the room when she entered, but 
left it immediately : she had never been in spirit recon- 
ciled to Dorothy : their relation had in it too much of 
latent rebuke for her. So Dorothy found herself alone 
with her cousin. 

He was but the ghost of the gay, self-satisfied, good- 
natured, jolly Rowland. Pale and thin, with drawn face 
and great eyes, he held out a wasted hand to Dorothy, 
and looked at her, not pitifully, but despairingly. He 
was one of those from whom take health and animal 
spirits, and they feel to themselves as if they had noth- 
ing. Nor have they in themselves anything. With those 
he could have borne what are called hardships fairly 
well ; those gone, his soul sat aghast in an empty house. 

“My poor cousin !” said Dorothy, touched with pro- 
found compassion at sight of his lost look. But he only 
gazed at her, and said nothing. She took the hand he 
did not offer, and held it kindly in hers. He burst into 
tears, and she gently laid it again on the coverlid. 

“ I know you despise me, Dorothy,” he sobbed, “ and 
you are right : I despise myself.” 

“You have been a good soldier to the king, Rowland,” 
said Dorothy, “ and he has acknowledged it fitly.” 

“ I care nothing for king or kingdom, Dorothy. Noth- 
ing is worth caring for. Do not mistake me. I am not 
going to talk presumptuously. I love not thee now, 
Dorothy. I never did love thee, and thou dost right to 
despise me, for I am unworthy. I would I were dead. 


438 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


Even the king’s majesty hath been no whit the better for 
me, but rather the worse ; for another man, one, I mean, 
who was not mounted on a stolen mare, would have per- 
formed his hest unhindered of foregone fault.” 

“ Thou didst not think thou wast doing wrong when 
thou stolest the mare,” said Dorothy, seeking to comfort 
him. 

“ How know’st thou that, Dorothy ? There was a spot 
in my heart that felt ashamed all the time.” 

“ He that is sorry is already pardoned, I think, cousin. 
Then what thou hast done evil is gone and forgotten.” 

“ Nay, Dorothy. But if it were forgotten, yet would it 
be. If I forgot it myself, yet would I not cease to be the 
man who had done it. And thou knowest, Dorothy, in 
how many things I have been false, so false that I counted 
myself honorable all the time. Tell me wherefore should 
I not kill myself, and rid the world of me : what with- 
holdeth ?” 

“That thou art of consequence to him that made 
thee.” 

“ How can that be, when I know myself worthless ? 
Will he be mistaken in me?” 

“ No, truly. But he may have regard to that thou 
shalt yet be. For surely he sent thee here to do some 
fitting work for him.” 

More talk followed, but Dorothy did not seem to 
herself to find the right thing to say, and retired to the 
top of the tower with a sense of failure, and oppressed 
with helpless compassion for the poor youth. 

The doctors of divinity and of medicine differed con- 
cerning the cause of his sad condition. The doctor of 
medicine said it arose entirely from a check in the circu- 
lation of the animal spirits; the doctor of divinity 
thought, but did not say, only hinted, that it came of a 
troubled conscience, and that he would have been well 


GIFTS OF HEALING. 


439 


long ago but for certain sins, known only to himself, that 
bore heavy upon his life. This gave the marquis a good 
ground of argument for confession, the weight of which 
argument was by the divine felt and acknowledged. But 
both doctors were right, and both were wrong. Could 
his health have been at once restored, a great reaction 
would have ensued, his interest in life would have re- 
awaked, and most probably he would have become 
indifferent to that which now oppressed him ; but on the 
slightest weariness or disappointment the same over- 
powering sense of desolation would have returned, and 
indeed at times amidst the warmest glow of health and 
keenest consciousness of pleasure. On the other hand, 
if by any argument addressed to his moral or religious 
nature his mind could have been a little eased, his 
physical nature would most likely have at once responded 
in improvement ; but he had no individual actions of 
such heavy guilt as the divine presumed, to repent of, 
nor could any amount or degree of sorrow for the past 
have sufficed to restore him to peace and health. It 
was a poet of the time who wrote, 

The soul’s dark cottage, battered and decayed, 

Lets in new light, through chinks that time has made : 

sickness had done the same thing as time with Rowland, 
and he saw the misery of his hovel. The cure was a 
deeper and harder matter than Dr. Bayly yet understood, 
or than probably Rowland himself would for years attain 
to, while yet the least glimmer of its approach would be 
enough to initiate physical recovery. 


CHAPTER XL VIE 


THE POE T-P HYSICI AN 


[ME passed, with but little change in the condition 



l of the patient. Winter began to draw on, and 
both doctors feared a more rapid decline. 

Early in the month of November, Dorothy received a 
letter from Mr. Herbert, informing her that her cousin, 
Henry Vaughan, one of his late twin pupils, would, on 
his way from Oxford, be passing near Raglan, and that 
he had desired him to call upon her. Willing enough to 
see her relative, she thought little more of the matter, 
until at length the day was at hand, when she found 
herself looking for his arrival with some curiosity as to 
what sort of person he might prove of whom she had 
heard so often from his master. 

When at length he was ushered into lady Glamorgan’s 
parlor, where her mistress had desired her to receive 
him, both her ladyship and Dorothy were at once preju- 
diced in his favor. They saw a rather tall young man 
of five or six-and-twenty, with a small head, a clear gray 
eye, and a sober yet changeful countenance. His car- 
riage was dignified yet graceful — self-restraint and no 
other was evident therein; a certain sadness brooded 
like a thin mist above his eyes, but his smile now and 
then broke out like the sun through a gray cloud. Dor- 
othy did not know that he was just getting over the end 
of a love story, or that he had a book of verses just 
printed, and had already begun to repent it. 

After the usual greetings, and when Dorothy had heard 


THE POET-PHYSICIAN. 


441 


the last news of Mr. Herbert, for Mr. Vaughan had made 
several journeys of late between Brecknock and Oxford, 
taking Llangattock Rectory in his way, and could tell 
her much she did not know concerning her friend, lady 
Glamorgan, who was not sorry to see her interested in a 
young man whose royalist predilections were plain and 
strong, proposed that Dorothy should take him over the 
castle. 

She led him first to the top of the tower to show him 
the reservoir and the prospect ; but there they fell into 
such a talk as revealed to Dorothy that here was a man 
who was her master in everything towards which, espe- 
cially since her mother’s death and her following 
troubles, she had most aspired, and a great hope arose 
in her heart for her cousin Scudamore. For in this talk 
it had come out that Mr. Vaughan had studied medicine, 
and was now on his way to settle for practice at Breck- 
nock, and as soon as Dorothy learned this she entreated 
her cousin Vaughan to go and visit her cousin Scuda- 
more. He consented, and Dorothy, scarcely allowing 
him to pause even under the admirable roof of the great 
hall as they passed through, led him straight to the 
turret-chamber, where the sick man was. 

They found him sitting by the fire, folded in blankets, 
listless and sad. 

When Dorothy had told him whom she had brought 
to see him, she would have left them, but Rowland 
turned on her such beseeching eyes that she remained, 
by no means unwillingly, and seated herself to hear what 
this wonderful young physician would say. 

“ It is very irksome to be thus prisoned in your cham- 
ber, sir Rowland,” he said. 

“No,” answered Scudamore, “or yes: I care not.” 

“ Have you no books about you ?” asked Mr. Vaughan, 
gria-u^ing round the room. 


*42 ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 

‘ Books V* repeated Scudamore, with a wan contempt- 
uous smile. 

“ You do not then love books ?” 

“ Wherefore should I love books ? What can books 
do for me? I love nothing. I long only to die.” 

“And go ?” suggested, rather than asked, Mr. 

Vaughan. 

“ I care not whither — anywhere away from here — if 
indeed I go anywhere. But I care not.” 

“ That is hardly what you mean, sir Rowland, I think. 
Will you allow me to interpret you ? Have you not the 
notion that if you were hence you would leave behind 
you a certain troublesome attendant who is scarce worth 
his wages ?” 

Scudamore looked at him but did not reply, and Mr. 
Vaughan went on. 

“ I know well what aileth you, for I am myself but 
now recovering from a similar sickness, brought upon me 
by the haunting of the same evil one who torments you.” 

“You think, then, that I am possessed?” said Row- 
land, with a faint smile and a glance at Dorothy. 

“ That verily thou art, and grievously tormented. 
Shall I tell thee who hath possessed thee? — for the 
demon hath a name that is known amongst men, though 
it frighteneth few, and draweth many, alas ! His name 
is Self, and he is the shadow of thy own self. First he 
made thee love him, which was evil, and now he hath 
made thee hate him, which is evil also. But if he be 
cast out and never more enter into thy heart, but remain 
as a servant in thy hall, then wilt thou recover from this 
sickness, and be whole and sound, and shalt find the 
varlet serviceable.” 

“Art thou not an exorciser, then, Mr. Vaughan, as well 
as a discerner of spirits ? I would thou couldst drive 
the said demon out of me, for truly I love him not.” 


THE POET-PHYSICIAN. 


443 


“ Through all thy hate thou lovest him more than thou 
knowest. Thou seest him vile, but instead of casting 
him out, thou mournest over him with foolish tears. 
And yet thou dreamest that by dying thou wouldst be 
rid of him. No, it is back to thy childhood thou must 
go to be free.” 

“ That were a strange way to go, sir. I know it not. 
There seems to be a purpose in what you say, Mr. 
Vaughan, but you take me not with you. How can I rid 
me of myself, so long as I am Rowland Scudamore?” 

“There is a way, sir Rowland — and but one way. 
Human words at least, however it may be with some high 
heavenly language, can never say the best things but by 
a kind of stumbling, wherein one contradiction keepeth 
another from falling. No man, as thou sayest truly, can 
rid him of himself and live, for that involveth an impossi- 
bility. But he can rid himself of that haunting shadow 
of his own self, which he hath pampered and fed upon 
shadowy lies, until it is bloated and black with pride and 
folly. When that demon-king of shades is once cast out, 
and the man’s house is possessed of God instead, then 
first he findeth his true substantial self, which is the 
servant, nay, the child of God. To rid thee of thyself 
thou must offer it again to him that made it. Be thou 
empty that he may fill thee. I never understood this 
until these latter days. Let me impart to thee certain 
verses I found but yesterday, for they will tell thee better 
what I mean. Thou knowest the sacred volume of the 
blessed George Herbert ?” 

“ I never heard of him or it,” said Scudamore. 

“ It is no matter as now : these verses are not of his, 
Prithee, hearken : 

H I carry with me, Lord, a foolish fool, 

That still his cap upon my head would place. 


444 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


I dare not slay him, he will not to school, 

And still he shakes his bauble in my face. 

“ I seize him, Lord, and bring him to thy door ; 

Bound on thine altar-threshold him I lay. 

He weepeth ; did I heed, he would implore ; 

And still he cries alack and well-a-day l 

“ If thou wouldst take him in and make him wise, 

I think he might be taught to serve thee well ; 

If not, slay him, nor heed his foolish cries. 

He’s but a fool that mocks and rings a bell.” 

Something in the lines appeared to strike Scudamore. 

“I thank you, sir,” he said,. “Might I put you to the 
trouble, I would request that you would write out the 
verses for me, that I may study their meaning at my 
leisure.” 

Mr. Vaughan promised, and, after a little more con- 
versation, took his leave. 

Now, whether it was from anything he had said in par- 
ticular, or that Scudamore had felt the general influence 
of the man, Dorothy could not tell, but from that visit 
she believed Rowland began to think more and to brood 
less. By and by he began to start questions of right and 
wrong, suppose cases, and ask Dorothy what she would 
do in such and such circumstances. With many cloudy 
relapses there was a suspicion of dawn, although a rainy 
one most likely, on his far horizon. 

“ Dost thou really believe, Dorothy,” he asked one 
day, “ that a man ever did love his enemy ? Didst thou 
ever know one who did ?” 

“I cannot say I ever did,” returned Dorothy. “I 
have however seen few that were enemies. But I am 
sure that had it not been possible we should never have 
been commanded thereto.” 

“ The last time Dr. Bayly came to see me he read those 
words, and I thought within myself all the time of the 


THE POET-PHYSICIAN. 445 

only enemy I had, and tried to forgive him, but could 
not.” 

“ Had he then wronged thee so deeply?” 

“ I know not, indeed, what women call wronged — least 
of all what thou, who art not like other women, wouldst 
• judge : but this thing seems to me strange — that when I 
look on thee, Dorothy, one moment it seems as if for 
thy sake I could forgive him anything — except that he 
slew me not outright, and the next that never can I 
forgive him even that wherein he never did me any 
_wrong.” 

“ What ! hatest thou then him that struck thee down 
in fair fight ? Sure thou art of meaner soul than I judged 
*hee. What man in battle-field hates his enemy, or 
blinks it less than enough to do his endeavor to slay 
him?” 

“ Know’st thou whom thou wouldst have me forgive ? 
He who struck me down was thy friend, Richard Hey- 
wood.” 

“Then he hath his mare again?” cried Dorothy 
eagerly. 

Rowland’s face fell, and she knew that she had spoken 
heartlessly — knew also that, for all his protestations, 
Rowland yet cherished the love she had so plainly 
refused. But the same moment she knew something 
more. For, by the side of Rowland, in her mind’s eye, 
stood Henry Vaughan, as wise as Rowland was foolish, 
as accomplished and learned as Rowland was narrow 
and ignorant ; but between them stood Richard, and she 
knew a something in her which was neither tenderness 
nor reverence, and yet included both. She rose in some 
confusion, and left the chamber. 

This good came of it, that from that moment Scuda- 
more was satisfied she loved Heywood, and, with much 
mortification, tried to accept his position. Slowly his 


446 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


health began to return, and slowly the deeper life that 
was at length to become his began to inform him. 

Heartless and poverty-stricken as he had hitherto shown 
himself, the good in him was not so deeply buried under 
refuse as in many a better-seeming man. Sickness had 
awakened in him a sense of requirement — of need also 
and loneliness, and dissatisfaction. He grew ashamed 
of himself and conscious of defilement. Something new 
began to rise above and condemn the old. There are 
who would say that the change was merely the mental 
condition resulting from and corresponding to physical 
weakness : that repentance, and the vision of the better 
which maketh shame, is but a mood, sickly as are the 
brain and nerves which generate it ; but he who under- 
goes the experience believes he knows better, and denies 
neither the wild beasts nor the stars because they roar 
and shine through the dark. 

Mr. Vaughan came to see him again and again, and 
with the concurrence of Dr. Spott, prescribed for him. 
As the spring approached he grew able to leave his 
room. The ladies of the family had him to their parlors 
to pet and feed, but he was not now so easily to be in- 
jured by kindness as when he believed in his own 
merits. 


CHAPTER XL VIII, 


HONORABLE DISGRACE. 

J ANUARY of 1646, according to our division of the 
year, arrived, and with it the heaviest cloud that had 
yet overshadowed Raglan. 

One day, about the middle of the month, Dorothy, 
entering lady Glamorgan’s parlor, found it deserted. A 
moan came to her ears from the adjoining chamber, and 
there she found her mistress on her face on the bed. 

“Madam,” said Dorothy in terror, “what is it? Let 
me be with you. May I not know it?” 

“ My lord is in prison,” gasped lady Glamorgan, and 
bursting into fresh tears, she sobbed and moaned. 

“ Has my lord been taken in the field, madam, or by 
cunning of his enemies?” 

“ Would to God it were either,” sighed lady Glamor- 
gan. “ Then were it a small thing to bear.” 

“What can it be, madam? You terrify me,” said 
Dorothy. 

No words of reply, only a fresh outburst of agonized — ■ 
could it also be angry ? — weeping followed. 

“ Since you will tell me nothing, madam, I must take 
comfort that of myself I know one thing.” 

“ Prithee, what knowest thou ?” asked the countess, 
but as if careless of being answered, so listless was her 
tone, so nearly inarticulate her words. 

“ That it is but what bringeth him fresh honor, my 
lady,” answered Dorothy. 

The countess started up, threw her arms about her, 


448 ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 

drew her down on the bed, kissed her, and held her fast, 
sobbing worse than ever. 

“Madam! madam!” murmured Dorothy from her 
bosom. 

“I thank thee, Dorothy,” she sighed out at length; 
“ for thy words and thy thoughts have ever been of a 
piece.” 

“ Sure, my lady, no one did ever yet dare think other- 
wise of my lord,” returned Dorothy, amazed. 

“ But many will now, Dorothy. My God ! they will 
have it that he is a traitor. Wouldst thou believe it, 
child — he is a prisoner in the castle of Dublin !” 

“ But is not Dublin in the hands of the king, my 
lady?” 

“ Ay ! there lies the sting of it ! What treacherous 
friends are these heretics ! But how should they be 
anything else ? Having denied their Saviour they may 
well malign their better brother ! My lord marquis of 
Ormond says frightful things of him.” 

“ One thing more I know, my lady,” said Dorothy, 
“ — that as long as his wife believes him the true man he 
is, he will laugh to scorn all that false lips may utter 
against him.” 

“ Thou art a good girl, Dorothy, but thou knowest 
little of an evil world. It is one thing to know thyself 
innocent, and another to carry thy head high.” 

“ But, madam, even the guilty do that : wherefore not 
the innocent then ?” 

“Because, my child, they are innocent, and. innocence 
so hateth the very shadow of guilt that it cannot brook 
the wearing it. My lord is grievously abused, Dorothy, 
— I say not by whom.” 

“ By whom should it be but his enemies, madam ?” 

“Not certainly by those who are to him friends, but 
yet, alas ! by those to whom he is the truest of friends.” 


HONORABLE DISGRACE. 


449 


“ Is my lord of Ormond then false ? Is he jealous of 
my lord Glamorgan ? Hath he falsely accused him ? I 
would I understood all, madam.” 

“I would I understood all myself, child. Certain 
papers have been found bearing upon my lord’s business 
in Ireland, all ears are filled with rumors of forgery and 
treason, coupled with the name of my lord, and he is a 
prisoner in Dublin castle.” 

She forced the sentence from her, as if repeating a 
hated lesson, then gave a cry, almost a scream of 
agony. 

“Weep not, madam,” said Dorothy, in the very fool- 
ishness of sympathetic expostulation. 

“What better cause could I have out of hell?” re- 
turned the countess, angrily. 

“ That it were no lie, madam.” 

“ It is true, I tell thee.” 

“ That my lord is a traitor, madam ?” 

Lady Glamorgan dashed her from her, and glared at 
her like a tigress. An evil word was on her lips, but 
her better angel spoke, and ere Dorothy could recover 
herself, she had listened and understood. 

“ God forbid ! ” she said, struggling to be calm. “ But 
it is true that he is in prison.” 

“ Then give God thanks, madam, who hath forbidden 
the one and allowed the other,” said Dorothy; and find- 
ing her own composure on the point of yielding, she 
courtesied and left the room. It was a breach of eti- 
quette without leave asked and given, but the face of 
the countess was again on her pillow, and she did not 
heed. 

For some time things went on as in an evil dream. 
The marquis was in angry mood, with no gout to lay it 
upon. The gloom spread over the castle, and awoke all 
manner of conjecture and report. Soon, after a fashion, 


150 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


the facts were known to everybody, and the gloom deep- 
ened. No further enlightenment reached Dorothy. 

At length one evening, her mistress having sent fot 
her, she found her much excited, with a letter in her 
hand. 

“Come here, Dorothy: see what I have!” she cried, 
holding out the letter with a gesture of triumph, and 
weeping and laughing alternately. 

“ Madam, it must be something precious indeed,” said 
Dorothy, “ for I have not heard your ladyship laugh for 
a weary while. May I not rejoice with you, madam?” 

“You shall, my good girl: hearken: I will read: — 
‘ My dear Heart,’ — Who is it from, thinkest thou, Doro- 
thy ? Canst guess ? — ‘ My dear Heart, I hope these will 
prevent any news shall come unto you of me, since my 
commitment to the Castle of Dublin, to which I assure 
thee I went as cheerfully and as willingly as they could 
wish, whosoever they were by whose means it was pro- 
cured ; and should as unwillingly go forth, were the 
gates both of the castle and town open unto me, until I 
were cleared : as they are willing to make me unservice- 
able to the king, and lay me aside, who have procured 
for me this restraint; when I consider thee a Woman, as 
I think I know you are, I fear lest you should be appre- 
hensive. But when I reflect that you are of the House 
of Thomond, and that you were once pleased to say these 
words unto me, That I should never, in tenderness of 
you, desist from doing what in honor I was obliged to 
do, I grow confident, that in this you will now show your 
magnanimity, and by it the greatest testimony of affection 
that you can possibly afford me ; and am also confident, 
that you know me so well, that I need not tell you how 
clear I am, and void of fear, the only effect of a good 
conscience; and that I am guilty of nothing that may 
testify one thought of disloyalty to his Majesty,' or of 


HONORABLE DISGRACE, 45J 

what may stain the honor of the family I come of, or set 
a brand upon my future posterity.’ ” 

The countess paused, and looked a general illumina- 
tion at Dorothy. 

“I told you so, madam,” returned Dorothy, rather 
stupidly perhaps. 

“Little fool!” rejoined the countess, half angered; 
“ dost suppose the wife of a man like my Ned needs to 
be told such things by a green goose like thee ? Thou 
wouldst have had me content that the man was honest — 
me, who had forgotten the word in his tenfold more than 
honesty ! Bah, child ! thou knowest not the love of a 
woman. I could weep salt tears over a hair pulled from 
his noble head. And thou to talk of telling me so, hussy ! 
Marry, forsooth !” 

And taking Dorothy to her bosom, she wept like a 
relenting storm. 

One sentence more she read ere she hurried with the 
letter to her father-in-law. The sentence was this : 

“ So I pray let not any of my friends that’s there, 
believe anything, until ye have the perfect relation of it 
from myself.” 

The pleasure of receiving news from his son did but 
little, however, to disperse the cloud that hung about the 
marquis. I do not know whether, or how far, he had 
been advised of the provision made for the king’s clear- 
ness by the anticipated self-sacrifice of Glamorgan, but I 
doubt if a full knowledge thereof gives any ground for 
disagreement with the judgment of the marquis, which 
seems pretty plainly to have been, that the king’s be- 
havior in the matter was neither that of a Christian nor 
a gentleman. As in the case of Strafford, he had 
accepted the offered sacrifice, and, in view of possible 
chances, had in Glamorgan’s commission pretermitted 
the usual authoritative formalities, thus keeping it in his 


452 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


power, with Glamorgan’s connivance, it must be con- 
fessed, but at Glamorgan’s expense, to repudiate his 
agency. This he had now done in a message to the par- 
liament, and this the marquis knew. 

His majesty had also written to lord Ormond as 
follows: “And albeit I have too just cause, for the 
clearing of my honor, to prosecute Glamorgan in a legal 
way, yet I will have you suspend the execution,” &c. At 
the same time his secretary wrote thus* to Ormond and 
the council : “ And since the warrant is not” “ sealed 

with the signet,” &c., &c., “ your lordships cannot but 
judge it to be at least surreptitiously gotten, if not worse ; 
for his majesty saith he remembers it not;” and thus 
again privately to Ormond : “ The king hath commanded 
me to advertise your lordship that the patent for making 
the said lord Herbert of Raglan earl of Glamorgan is not 
passed the great seal here, so as he is no peer of this 
kingdom ; notwithstanding he styles himself, and hath 
treated with the rebels in Ireland, by the name of earl of 
Glamorgan, which is as vainly taken upon him as his 
pretended warrant (if any such be) was surreptitiously 
gotten.” The title had, meanwhile, been used by the 
king himself in many communications with the earl. 

These letters never came, I presume, to the marquis’s 
knowledge, but they go far to show that his feeling, even 
were it a little embittered by the memory of their mid- 
night conference and his hopes therefrom, went no far- 
ther than the conduct of his majesty justified. It was 
no wonder that the straightforward old man, walking 
erect to ruin for his king, should fret and fume, yea, yield 
to downright wrath and enforced contempt. 

Of the king’s behavior in the matter Dorothy, how- 
ever, knew nothing yet. 

One day towards the end of February, a messenger 
from the king arrived at Raglan, on his way to Ireland 


HONORABLE DISGRACE. 


453 


to lord Ormond. He had found the roads so beset — for 
things were by this time, whether from the successes of 
the parliament only, or from the negligence of disappoint- 
ment on the part of lord Worcester as well, much altered 
in Wales and on its borders — that he had been com- 
pelled to leave his dispatches in hiding, and had reached 
the castle only with great difficulty and after many 
adventures. His chief object in making his way thither 
was to beg of lord Charles a convoy to secure his dis- 
patches and protect him on his farther journey. But 
lord Charles received him by no means cordially, for the 
whole heart of Raglan was sore. He brought him, how- 
ever, to his father, who, although indisposed and confined 
to his chamber, consented to see him. When Mr. 
Boteler was admitted, lady Glamorgan was in the cham- 
ber and there remained. 

Probably the respect to the king’s messenger which 
had influenced the marquis to receive him, would have 
gone further and modified the expression of his feelings 
a little when he saw him, but that, like many more men, 
his lordship, although fairly master of his temper-horses 
when in health, was apt to let them run away with him 
upon occasion of even slighter illness than would serve 
for an excuse. 

“ Hast thou in thy dispatches any letters from his 
majesty to my son Glamorgan, master Boteler?” he in- 
quired, frowning unconsciously. 

“ Not that I know of, my lord,” answered Mr. Boteler, 
“ but there may be such with the lord marquis of 
Ormond’s.” 

He then proceeded to give a friendly message from the 
king concerning the earl. But at this the, “ smouldering 
fire outbrake” from the bosom of the injured father and 
subject. 

“ It is the grief of my heart,” cried his lordship, wrath 


454 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


predominating over the regret which was yet plainly 
enough to be seen in his face and heard in his tone. — “ It 
is the grief of my heart that I am enforced to say that 
the king is wavering and fickle. To be the more his 
friend, it too plainly appeareth, is but to be the more 
handled as his enemy.” 

“ Say not so, my lord,” returned Mr. Boteler. “ His 
gracious majesty looketh not for such unfriendly judg- 
ment from your lips. Have I not brought your lordship 
a most gracious and comfortable message from him con- 
cerning my lord Glamorgan, with his royal thanks for 
your former loyal expressions?” 

“ Mr. Boteler, thou knowest naught of the matter. 
That thou hast brought me a budget of fine words, I go 
not to deny. But words may be but schismatics ; deeds 
alone are certainly of the true faith. Verily the king’s 
majesty setteth his words in the fore-front of the battle, 
but his deeds lag in the rear, and let his words be taken 
prisoners. When his majesty was last here, I lent him a 
book to read in his chamber, the beginning of which I 
know he read, but if he had ended, it would have showed 
him what it was to be a fickle prince.” 

“ My lord ! my lord ! surely your lordship knoweth 
better of his majesty.” 

“To know better may be to know worse, master 
Boteler. Was it not enough to suffer my lord Glamorgan 
to be unjustly imprisoned by my lord marquis of Ormond 
for what he had his majesty’s authority for, but that he 
must in print protest against his proceedings and his own 
allowance, and not yet recall it ? But I will pray for 
him, and that he may be more constant to his friends, 
and as soon as my other employment will give leave, you 
shall have a convoy to fetch securely your dispatches.” 

Herewith Mr. Boteler was dismissed, lord Charles 
accompanying him from the room. 


HONORABLE DISGRACE. 


455 


“False as ice!” muttered the marquis to himself, left 
as he supposed alone. “ My boy, thou hast built on a 
quicksand, and thy house goeth down to the deep. I 
am wroth with myself that ever I dreamed of moving 
such a bag of chaff to return to the bosom of his honor- 
able mother.” 

“My lord,” said lady Glamorgan from behind the 
bed-curtains, “have you forgotten that I and my long 
ears are here?” 

“Ha! art thou indeed there, my mad Irishwoman! I 
had verily forgotten thee. But is not this king of ours 
as the Minotaur, dwelling in the labyrinths of deceit, 
and devouring the noblest in the land ? There was his 
own Strafford, next his foolish Laud, and now comes my 
son, worth a host of such !” 

“ In his letter, my lord of Glamorgan complaineth not 
of his majesty’s usage,” said the countess. 

“ My lord of Glamorgan is patient as Grisel. He 
would pass through the pains of purgatory with never a 
grumble. But purgatory is for none such as he. In 
good sooth I am made of different stuff. My soul doth 
loathe deceit, and worse in a king than a clown. What 
king is he that will lie for a kingdom !” 

Day after day passed, and nothing was done to speed 
the messenger, who grew more and more anxious to 
procure his dispatches and be gone; but lord Worcester, 
through the king’s behavior to his honorable and self- 
forgetting son, with whom he had never had a difference 
except on the point of his blind devotion to his majesty’s 
affairs, had so lost faith in the king himself that he had 
no heart for his business. It seems also that for his 
son’s sake he wished to delay Mr. Boteler, in order that 
a messenger of his own might reach Glamorgan before 
Ormond should receive the king’s dispatches. For a 
whole fortnight therefore no further steps were taken, 


456 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


and Boteler, wearied out, bethought him of applying to 
the countess to see whether she would not use her influ- 
ence in his behalf. I am thus particular about Boteler’s 
affair because through it Dorothy came to know what 
the king’s behavior had been, and what the marquis 
thought of it : she was in the room when Mr. Boteler 
waited on her mistress. 

“ May it please your ladyship,” he said, “ I have 
sought speech of you that I might beg your aid for the 
king’s business, remembering you of the hearty affection 
my master the king beareth towards your lord and all his 
house.” 

“ Indeed you do well to remember me of that, master 
Boteler, for it goeth so hard with my memory in these 
troubled times that I had nigh forgotten it,” said the 
countess dryly. 

“ I most certainly know, my lady, that his majesty 
hath gracious intentions towards your lord.” 

“Intention is but an addled egg,” said the countess. 
“ Give me deeds, if I may choose.” 

“ Alas ! the king hath but little in his power, and the 
less that his business is thus kept waiting.” 

“Your haste is more than your matter, master Boteler. 
Believe me, whatsoever you consider of it, your going so 
hurriedly is of no great account, for to my knowledge 
there are others gone already with duplicates of the 
business.” 

“Madam, you astonish me.” 

“ I speak not without book. My own cousin, William 
Winter, is one, and he is my husband’s friend, and hath 
no relation to my lord marquis of Ormond,” said lady 
Glamorgan significantly. 

“ My lord, madam, is your lord’s very good friend, 
and I am very much his servant; but if his majesty’s 
business be done, I care not by whose hand it is. But I 


HONORABLE DISGRACE. 45? 

thank your honor, for now I know wherefore I am stayed 
here.” 

With these words Boteler withdrew — and withdraws 
from my story, for his further proceedings are in respect 
of it of no consequence. 

When he was gone, lady Glamorgan, turning a flushed 
face, and encountering Dorothy’s pale one, gave a hard 
laugh, and said : 

“Why, child! thou lookest like a ghost! Wast afeard 
of the man in my presence ?” 

“ No, madam ; but it seemed to me marvelous that his 
majesty’s messenger should receive such words from my 
mistress, and in my lord of Worcester’s house.” 

“ I’ faith, marvelous it is, Dorothy, that there should 
be such good cause so to use him !” returned lady Gla- 
morgan, tears of vexation rising as she spoke. “ But an’ 
thou think I used the man roughly, thou shouldst have 
heard my father speak to him his mind of the king his 
master.” 

“ Hath the king then shown himself unkingly, 
madam ?” said Dorothy aghast. 

Whereupon lady Glamorgan told her all she knew, and 
all she could remember of what she had heard the mar- 
quis say to Boteler. 

“Trust me, child,” she added, “my lord Worcester, 
no less than I am, is cut to the heart by this behavior of 
the king’s. That my husband, silly angel, should say 
nothing, is but like him. He would bear and bear till 
all was borne.” 

“ But,” said Dorothy, “the king is still the king.” 

“Let him be the king then,” returned her mistress. 
“ Let him look to his kingdom. Why should I give him 
my husband to do it for him and be disowned therein ? 
I thank heaven I can do without a king, but I can’t do 
without my Ned, and there he lies in prison for him who 
U 


458 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


cons him no thanks ! Not that I would overmuch heed 
the prison if the king would but share the blame with 
him ; but for the king to deny him — to say that he did 
all of his own motion and without authority ! — Why, 
child, I saw the commission with my own eyes, nor 
count myself under any farther obligation to hold my 
peace concerning it ! I know my husband will bear all 
things, even disgrace itself undeserved, for the king’s 
sake : he is the loveliest of martyrs; but that is no reason 
why I should bear it. The king hath no heart and no 
conscience. No, I will not say that ; but I will say that 
he hath little heart and less conscience. My good hus- 
band’s fair name is gone — blasted by the king, who 
raiseth the mist of Glamorgan’s dishonor that he may 
hide himself safe behind it. I tell thee, Dorothy 
Vaughan, I should not have grudged his majesty my 
lord’s life, an’ he had been but a right kingly king. I 
should have wept enough and complained too much, in 
womanish fashion, doubtless ; but I tell thee earl Tho- 
mond’s daughter would not have grudged it. But my 
lord’s truth and honor are dear to him, and the good 
report of them is dear to me. I swear I can ill brook 
carrying the title he hath given me. It is my husband’s 
and not mine, else would I fling it in his face who thus 
wrongs my Herbert.” 

This explosion from the heart of the wild Irishwoman 
sounded dreadful in the ears of the king-worshiper. 
But he whom she thus accused the king of wronging, 
had been scarcely less revered of her, even while the 
idol with the feet of clay yet stood, and had certainly 
been loved greatly more, than the king himself. Hence, 
notwithstanding her struggle to keep her heart to its 
allegiance, such a rapid change took place in her feel- 
ings, that ere long she began to confess to herself that if 
the puritans could have known what the king was, their 


HONORABLE DISGRACE. 


459 


conduct would not have been so unintelligible — not that 
she thought they had an atom of right on their side, or 
in the least feared she might ever be brought to think in 
the matter as they did : she confessed only that she 
could then have understood them. 

The whole aspect and atmosphere of Raglan continued 
changed. The marquis was still very gloomy ; lord 
Charles often frowned and bit his lip ; and the flush that 
so frequently overspread the face of lady Glamorgan as 
she sat silent at her embroidery, showed that she was 
thinking in anger of the wrong done to her husband. 
In this feeling all in the castle shared, for the matter 
had now come to be a little understood, and, as they 
loved the earl more than the king, they took the earl’s 
part. 

Meantime he for whose sake the fortress was troubled, 
having been released on large bail, was away, with free 
heart, to Kilkenny, busy as ever on behalf of the king, 
full of projects, and eager in action. Not a trace of 
resentment did he manifest — only regret that his majes- 
ty’s treatment of him, in destroying his credit with the 
catholics as the king’s commissioner, had put it out of 
his power to be so useful as he might otherwise have 
been. His brain was ever contriving how to remedy 
things, but parties were complicated, and none quite 
trusted him now that he was disowned of his master. 


CHAPTER XLIX. 


SIEGE, 


HINGS began to look threatening. Raglan’s brood- 



i ing disappointment and apprehension was like the 
electric overcharge of the earth, awaiting and drawing to 
it the hovering cloud : the lightning and thunder of the 
war began at length to stoop upon the Yellow Tower of 
Gwent. When the month of May arrived once more 
with its moonlight and apple-blossoms, the cloud came 
with it. The doings of the earl of Glamorgan in Ireland 
had probably hastened the vengeance of the parliament. 

There was no longer any royal army. Most of the 
king’s friends had accepted the terms offered them ; and 
only a few of his garrisons, amongst the rest that of Rag- 
lan, held out — no longer, however, in such trim for 
defense as at first. The walls, it is true, were rather 
stronger than before, the quantity of provisions was large, 
and the garrison was sufficient; but their horses were 
now comparatively few, and, which was worse, the fodder 
in store was, in prospect of a long siege, scanty. But the 
worst of all, indeed the only weak and therefore miser- 
able fact, was, that the spirit, I do not mean the courage, 
of the castle was gone ; its enthusiasm had grown sere ; 
its inhabitants no longer loved the king as they had loved 
him, and even stern-faced general Duty cannot bring up 
his men to a hand-to-hand conflict with the same dans 
as queen Love. 

The rumor of approaching troops kept gathering, and 
at every fresh report Scudamore’s eyes shone. 


SIEGE. 461 

“ Sir Rowland,” said the governor one day, “ hast not 
had enough of fighting yet for all thy lame shoulder?” 

“ Tis but my left shoulder, my lord,” answered Scuda- 
more. 

“ Thou lookest for the siege as an’ it were but a tussle 
and over — a flash and a roar. An’ thou had to answer 
for the place like me — well !” 

“ Nay, my lord, I would fain show the roundheads 
what an honest house can do to hold out rogues.” 

“Ay, but there’s the rub!” returned lord Charles: 
“ will the house hold out the rogues ? Bethink thee, 
Rowland, there is never a spot in it fit for defense except 
the keep and the kitchen.” 

“ We can make sallies, my lord.” 

“To be driven in again by ten times our number, and 
kept in while they knock our walls about our ears ! 
However, we will hold out while we can. Who knows 
what turn affairs may take ?” 

It was towards the end of April when the news reached 
Raglan that the king, desperate at length, had made his 
escape from beleaguered Oxford, and in the disguise of 
a serving man, betaken himself to the head-quarters of 
the Scots army, to find himself no king, no guest even, 
but a prisoner. He sought shelter and found captivity. 

The marquis dropped his chin on his chest and mur- 
mured, “ All is over.” 

But the pang that shot to his heart awoke wounded 
loyalty : he had been angry with his monarch, and justly, 
but he would fight for him still. 

“ See to the gates, Charles,” he cried, almost springing, 
spite of his unwieldiness, from his chair. “ Tell Caspar 
to keep the powder-mill going night and day. Would to 
God my boy Ned were here ! His majesty hath wronged 
me, but throned or prisoned he is my king still. The 
church must come down, Charles, The dead are for the 


462 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


living, and will not cry out.” — For in St. Cadocus’ church 
lay the tombs of his ancestors. 

On deliberation it was resolved, however, that only the 
tower, which commanded some portions of the castle, 
should fall. To Dorothy it was like taking down the 
standard of the Lord. She went with some of the ladies 
to look a last look at the ancient structure, and saw 
mass after mass fall silent from the top to clash hideous 
at the foot amidst the broken tomb-stones. It was sad 
enough! but the destruction of the cottages around it, 
that the enemy might not have shelter there, was sadder 
still. The women wept and wailed ; the men growled, 
and said what was Raglan to them that their houses 
should be pulled from over their heads. The marquis 
offered compensation and shelter. All took the money, 
but few accepted the shelter, for the prospect of a siege 
was not attractive to any but such as were fond of fight- 
ing, of whom some would rather attack than defend. 

The next day they heard that sir Trevor Williams was 
at Usk with a strong body of men. They knew colonel 
Birch was besieging Gutbridge castle. Two days passed, 
and then colonel Kirk appeared to the north, and 
approached within two miles. The ladies began to look 
pale as often as they saw two persons talking together : 
there might be fresh news. His father and his wife were 
not the only persons in the castle who kept sighing for 
Glamorgan. Every soul in it felt as if, not to say fancied 
that, his presence would have made it impregnable. 

But a strange excitement seized upon Dorothy, which 
arose from a sense of trust and delegation, outwardly 
unauthorized. She had not the presumption to give it 
form in words, even to Caspar, but she felt as if they 
two were the special servants of the absent power. 
Ceaselessly therefore she kept open eyes, and saw and 
spoke and reminded and remedied where she could, so 


SIEGE. 


463 


noiselessly, so unobtrusively, that none were offended, 
and all took heed of the things she brought before them. 
Indeed what she said came at length to be listened to 
almost as if it had been a message from Glamorgan. 
But her chief business was still the fire-engine, whose 
machinery she anxiously watched — for if anything should 
happen to Caspar and then to the engine, what would 
become of them when driven into the Tower? 

Discipline, which of late had got very drowsy, was 
stirred up to fresh life. Watch grew strict. The garri- 
son was drilled more regularly and carefully, and the 
guard and sentinels relieved to the minute. The Armory 
was entirely overhauled, and every smith set to work to 
get the poor remainder of its contents into good condi- 
tion. 

One evening lord Charles came to his father with the 
news that some score of fresh horses had arrived. 

“ Have they brought provender with them, my lord ?” 
asked the marquis. 

“ Alas, no, my lord, only teeth,” answered the gover- 
nor. 

“ How stands the hay ?” 

“ At low ebb, my lord. There is plenty of oats how- 
ever.” 

“ We hear to-day nothing of the roundheads : what 
say you to turning them out and letting them have a last 
bellyful of sweet grass under the walls ?” 

“ I say ’tis so good a plan, my lord, that I think we 
had better extend it, and let a few of the rest have a 
parting nibble.” 

The marquis approved. 

There was a postern in the outermost wall of the 
castle on the western side, seldom used, commanded by 
the guns of the tower, and opening upon a large field of 
grass, with nothing between but a ditch. It was just 


464 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


wide enough to let one horse through at a time, and by 
this the governor resolved to turn them out, and as soon 
as it was nearly dark, ordered a few thick oak planks to 
be laid across the ditch, one above another, for a bridge. 
The field was sufficiently fenced to keep them from 
straying, and with the first signs of dawn they would 
take them in again. 

Dorothy, leaving the tower for the night, had reached 
the archway, when to her surprise she saw the figure of a 
huge horse move across the mouth of it, followed by 
another and another. Except Richard’s mare on that 
eventful night she had never seen horse-kind there be- 
fore. One after another, till she had counted some 
five and twenty, she saw pass, then heard them cross the 
fountain court with heavy foot upon the tiles. At length, 
dark as it was, she recognized her own little Dick mov- 
ing athwart the opening. She sprang forward, seized 
him by the halter, and drew him in beside her. On and 
on they came till she had counted eighty, and then the 
procession ceased. 

Presently she heard the voice of lord Charles as he 
crossed the hall and came out into the court, saying, 

“ How many didst thou count, Shafto ?” 

“ Seventy-nine, my lord,” answered the groom, coming 
from the direction of the gate. 

“I counted eighty at the hall-door as they went in.” 

“ I am certain no more than seventy-nine went through 
the gate, my lord.” 

“ What can have become of the eightieth ? He must 
have gone into the chapel, or up the archway. Or he 
may be still in the hall. Art sure he is not grazing on 
the turf?” 

“ Certain sure, my lord,” answered Shafto. 

“I am the thief, my lord,” said Dorothy, coming from 
the archway behind him, leading her little hors$, 


SIEGE . 465 

“ — Good my lord, let me keep Dick. He is as useful 
as another — more useful than some.” 

“How, cousin!” cried lord Charles, “didst imagine I 
was sending off thy genet to save the hay? No, no. 
An’ thou hadst looked well at the other horses, thou 
wouldst have seen they are such as we want for work — 
such as may indeed save the hay, but after another 
fashion. I but meant to do thy Dick a kindness, and 
give him a bite of grass with the rest.” 

“ Then you are turning them out into the fields, my 
lord ?” 

“ Yes — at the little postern.” 

“ Is it safe, my lord, with the enemy so near?” 

“ It is my father’s idea. I do not think there is any 
danger. There will be no moon to-night.” 

“ May not the scouts ride the closer for that, my 
lord ?” 

“Yes, but they will not see the better.” 

“ I hope, my lord, you will not think me presumptu- 
ous, but — please let me keep my Dick inside the walls.” 

“ Do what thou wilt with thine own, cousin. I think 
thou art over-fearful; but — do as thou wilt, I say.” 

Dorothy led Dick back to his stable, a little distressed 
that lord Charles seemed to dislike her caution. 

But she had a strong feeling of the risk of the thing, 
and after she went to bed was so haunted by it, that she 
could not sleep. After a while, however, her thoughts 
took another direction : — Might not Richard come to the 
siege ? What if they should meet ? — That his party had 
triumphed, no whit altered the rights of the matter, and 
she was sure it had not altered her feelings ; yet her 
feelings were altered : she was no longer so fiercely in- 
dignant against the puritans as heretofore ! Was she 
turning traitor? or losing the government of herself? or 
was the right triumphing in her against her will ? Was 


466 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


it St. Michael for the truth conquering St. George for 
the old way of England ? Had the king been a tyrant 
indeed ? and had the powers of heaven declared against 
him, and were they now putting on their instruments to 
cut down the harvest of wrong ? Had not Richard been 
very sure of being in the right? — But what was that 
shaking — not of the walls, but the foundations ? What 
was that noise as of distant thunder ? She sprang from 
her bed, caught up her night-light, for now she never 
slept in the dark as heretofore, and hurried to the watch- 
tower. From its top she saw, by the faint light of the 
stars, vague forms careering over the fields. There was 
no cry except an occasional neigh, and the thunder was 
from the feet of many horses on the turf. The enemy 
was lifting the castle-horses ! 

She flew to the chamber beneath, where, since the 
earl's departure, in the stead of the cross-bow, a small 
minion gun had been placed by lord Charles, with its 
muzzle in the round where the lines of the loop-hole 
crossed. A piece of match lay beside it. She caught it 
up, lighted it at her candle, and fired the gun. The 
tower shook with its roar and recoil. — She had fired the 
first gun of the siege : might it be a good omen ! 

In an instant the castle was alive. Warders came 
running from the western gate. Dorothy had gone, and 
they could not tell who had fired the gun, but there was 
no occasion to ask why it had been fired — for where 
were the horses ? They could hear, but no longer see 
them. There was mounting in hot haste, and a hurried 
sally. Lord Charles flung himself on little Dick’s bare 
back, and flew to reconnoiter. Fifty of the garrison 
were ready armed and mounted by the time he came 
back, having discovered the route they were taking, and 
off they went at full speed in pursuit. But, encumbered 
as they were at first with the driven horses, the twenty 


SIEGE. 


46 ? 


men who had carried them off had such a start of their 
pursuers that they reached the high road where they 
could not stray, and drove them right before them to sir 
Trevor Williams at Usk. 

“ The fodder will last the longer,” said the marquis, 
with a sigh sent after his eighty horses. 

“ Mistress Dorothy,” said lord Charles the next day, 
“methinks thou art as Cassandra in Troy. I shall trem- 
ble after this to do aught against thy judgment.” 

“ My lord,” returned Dorothy, “ I have to ask your 
pardon for my presumption, but it was borne in upon 
me, as Tom Fool says, that there was danger in the 
thing. It was scarcely judgment on my part — rather a 
womanish dread.” 

“ Go thou on to speak thy mind like Cassandra, cousin 
Dorothy, and let us men despise it at our peril. I am 
humbled before thee,” said lord Charles, with the gener- 
osity of his family. 

“Truly, child,” said lady Glamorgan, “the mantle of 
my husband hath fallen upon thee ! ” 

The next day sir Trevor Williams and his men sat 
down before the castle with a small battery, and the 
siege was fairly begun. Dorothy, on the top of the 
keep, watching them, but not understanding what they 
were about in particulars, heard the sudden bellow of 
one of their cannon. Two of the battlements beside her 
flew into one, and the stones of the parapet between 
them stormed into the cistern. Had her presence been 
the attraction to that thunderbolt ? Often after this, 
while she watched the engine below in the workshop, 
she would hear the dull thud of an iron ball against the 
body of the tower, but although it knocked the parapet 
into showers of stones, their artillery could not make the 
slightest impression upon that. 

The same night a sally was prepared. Rowland ran 


468 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


to lord Charles, begging leave to go. But his lordship 
would not hear of it, telling him to get well, and he 
should have enough of sallying before the siege was 
over. The enemy were surprised, and lost a few men, 
but soon recovered themselves and drove the royalists 
home, following them to the very gates, whence the guns 
of the castle sent them back in their turn. 

Many such sallies and skirmishes followed. Once and 
again there was but time for the guard to open the gate, 
admit their own, and close it, ere the enemy came thun- 
dering up — to be received with a volley and gallop off. 
At first there was great excitement within the walls when 
a party was out. Eager and anxious eyes followed them 
from every point of vision. But at length they got used 
to it, as to all the ordinary occurrences of siege. 

By and by colonel Morgan appeared with additional 
forces, and made his head-quarters, to the south, at 
Llandenny. In two days more the castle was surround- 
ed, and they began to erect a larger battery on the east 
of it, also to dig trenches and prepare for mining. The 
chief point of attack was that side of the stone court 
which lay between the towers of the kitchen and the 
library. Here then came the hottest of the siege, and 
very soon that range of building gave show of affording 
an easy passage by the time the outer works should be 
taken. 

After the first ball, whose execution Dorothy had wit- 
nessed, there came no more for some time. Sir Trevor 
waited until the second battery should be begun and 
captain Hooper arrive, who was to be at the head of the 
mining operations. Hence most of the inmates of the 
castle began to imagine that a siege was not such an 
unpleasant thing after all. They lacked nothing ; the 
apple trees bloomed ; the moon shone ; the white horse 
fed the fountain ; the pigeons flew about the courts, and 


SIEGE. 


469 


the peacock strutted on the grass. But when they began 
digging their approaches and mounting their guns on 
the east side, sir Trevor opened his battery on the west, 
and the guns of the Tower replied. The guns also from 
the kitchen tower and another between it and the library 
tower, played upon the trenches, and the noise was 
tremendous. At first the inhabitants were nearly deaf- 
ened, and frequently failed to hear what was said, but at 
length they grew hardened — so much so that they were 
often unaware of the firing altogether, and began again 
to think a siege no great matter. But when the guns of 
the eastern battery opened fire, and at the first discharge 
a round shot, bringing with it a barrowful of stones, 
came down the kitchen chimney, knocking the lid 
through the bottom of the cook’s stewpan, and scatter- 
ing all the fire about the place ; when the roof of one of 
the turrets went clashing over the stones of the paved 
court ; when a spent shot struck the bars of the Great 
Mogul’s cage, and set him furious, making them think 
what might happen, and wishing they were sure of the 
politics of the wild beasts ; when the stones and slates 
flew about like sudden showers of hail ; when every now 
and then a great rumble told of a falling wall and that 
side of the court was rapidly turning to a heap of ruins ; 
then were cries and screams, many more however of 
terror than of injury, heard in the castle, and they 
began to understand that it was not starvation, but 
something more peremptory still, to which they were 
doomed to succumb. At times there would fall a lull, 
perhaps for a few hours, perhaps but for a few moments, 
to end in a sudden fury of firing on both sides, mingled 
with shouts, the rattling of bullets, and the falling of 
stones, when the women would rush to and fro scream- 
ing, and all would imagine the storm was in the breach. 

But the gloom of the marquis seemed to have vanished 


470 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


with the breaking of the storm, as the outburst of the 
lightning takes the weight off head and heart that has 
for days been gathering. True, when his house began 
to fall, he would look for a moment grave at each suc- 
cessive rumble, but the next he would smile and nod his 
head, as if all was just as he had expected and would 
have it. One day when sir Toby Mathews and Dr. Bayly 
happened both to be with him in his study, an ancient 
stack of chimneys tumbled with tremendous uproar into 
the stone court. The two clergymen started visibly, and 
then looked at each other with pallid faces. But the 
marquis smiled, kept the silence for an instant, and then, 
in slow solemn voice, said : 

“ Scimus enim quoniam si terrestris domus nostra hu- 
jus habitationis dissolvatur, quod aedificationem ex Deo 
habemus, domun non manufactam, aeternam in coelis.” 

The clergymen grasped each other by the hand, then 
turning bowed together to the marquis, but the conver- 
sation was not resumed. 

One evening in the drawing room, after supper, the 
marquis, in good spirits, and for him in good health, was 
talking more merrily than usual. Lady Glamorgan stood 
near him in the window. The captain of the garrison 
was giving a spirited description of a sally they had 
made the night before upon colonel Morgan in his 
quarters at Llandenny, and sir Rowland was vowing 
that, come of it what might, leave or no leave, he would 
ride the next time, when crash went something in the 
room, the marquis put his hand to his head, and the 
countess fled in terror, crying “ O Lord! O Lord !” A 
bullet had come through the window, knocked a little 
marble pillar belonging to it in fragments on the floor, 
and glancing from it, struck the marquis on the side of 
the head. The countess, finding herself unhurt, ran no 
farther than the door. 


SIEGE . 


471 


“ I ask your pardon, my lord, for my rudeness,” she 
said, with trembling voice, as she came slowly back. 
“But indeed, ladies,” she added, “I thought the house 
was coming down. — You gentlemen, who know not what 
fear is, I pray you to forgive me, for I was mortally 
frightened.’ * 

“ Daughter, you had reason to run away when your 
father was knocked on the head,” said the marquis. 

He put his finger on the flattened bullet where it had 
fallen on the table, and turning it round and round, was 
silent for a moment, evidently framing aright something 
he wanted to say. Then, with the pretense that the 
bullet had been flattened upon his head, 

“ Gentlemen,” he remarked, “ those who had a mind 
to flatter me, were wont to tell me that I had a good 
head in my younger days, but if I don’t flatter myself, I 
think I have a good head-piece in my old age, or else it 
would not have been musket-proof.” 

But although he took the thing thus quietly and 
indeed merrily, it revealed to him that their usual apart- 
ments were no longer fit for the ladies, and he gave 
orders therefore that the great rooms in the Tower 
should be prepared for them and the children. 

Dorothy’s capacity for work was not easily satisfied, 
but now for a time she had plenty to do. In the midst 
of the roar from the batteries, and the answering roar 
from towers and walls, the ladies betook themselves to 
their stronger quarters : a thousand necessaries had to 
be carried with them, and she, as a matter of course, it 
seemed, had to superintend the removal. With many 
hands to make light work she soon finished, however, 
and the family was lodged where no hostile shot could 
reach them, although the frequent fall of portions of its 
battlemented summit rendered even a peep beyond its 
impenetrable shell hazardous. Dorothy would lie awake 


472 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


at night, where she slept in her mistress’s room, and 
listen now to the baffled bullet as it fell from the scarce 
indented wall, now to the roar of the artillery, sounding 
dull and far away through the ten-foot thickness ; and 
ever and again the words of the ancient psalm would 
return upon her memory : “ Thou hast been a shelter 

for me, and a strong tower from the enemy.” 

She tended the fire-engine if possible yet more care- 
fully than ever, kept the cistern full, and the water lip- 
ping the edge of the moat, but let no fountain flow 
except that from the mouth of the white horse. Her 
great fear was lest a shot should fall into the reservoir 
and injure its bottom, but its contriver had taken care 
that, even without the protection of its watery armor, it 
should be indestructible. 

The marquis would not leave his own rooms and the 
supervision they gave him. The domestics were mostly 
lodged within the kitchen tower, which, although in full 
exposure to the enemy’s fire, had as yet proved able to 
resist it. But all between that and the library tower was 
rapidly becoming a chaos of stones and timber. Lord 
Glamorgan’s secret chamber was shot through and 
through ; but Caspar, as soon as the direction and force 
of the battery were known, had carried off his books and 
instruments. 


CHAPTER L. 


A SALLY. 

M EANTIME Mr. Heywood had returned home to 
look after his affairs, and brought Richard with 
him. In the hope that peace was come they had laid 
down their commissions. Hardly had they reached 
Redware when they heard the news of the active opera- 
tions at Raglan, and Richard rode off to see how things 
were going — not a little anxious concerning Dorothy, 
and full of eagerness to protect her, but entirely without 
hope of favor either at her hand or her heart. He had 
no inclination to take part in the siege, and had had 
enough of fighting for any satisfaction it had brought 
him. It might be the right thing to do, and so far the 
only path towards the sunrise, but had he ground for 
hope that the day of freedom had in himself advanced 
beyond the dawn ? His confidence in Milton and 
Cromwell, with his father’s, continued unshaken, but 
what could man do to satisfy the hunger for freedom 
which grew and gnawed within him ? Neither political 
nor religious liberty could content him. He might him- 
self be a slave in a universe of freedom. Still ready, 
even for the sake of mere outward freedom of action and 
liberty of worship, to draw the sword, he yet had begun 
to think he had fought enough. 

As he approached Raglan he missed something from 
the landscape, but only upon reflection discovered that 
it was the church tower. Entering the village he found 
it all but deserted, for the inhabitants had mostly gone, 


474 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


and it was too near the gates and too much exposed to 
the sudden sallies of the besieged for the occupation of 
the enemy. That day, however, a large re-inforcement, 
sent from Oxford by Fairfax to strengthen colonel Mor- 
gan, having arrived at Llandenny, some of its officers, 
riding over to inspect captain Hooper’s operations, had 
halted at the White Horse, where they were having a 
glass of ale when Richard rode up. He found them old 
acquaintances, and sat down with them. Almost even- 
ing when he arrived, it was quite dusk when they rose 
and called for their horses. 

They had placed a man to keep watch towards Raglan, 
while the rest of their attendants, who were but few, 
leaving their horses in the yard, were drinking their ale 
in the kitchen ; but seeing no sign of peril, and growing 
weary of his own position and envious of that of his 
neighbors, the fellow had ventured, discipline being 
neither active nor severe, to rejoin his companions. 

The host, being a tenant of the marquis, had decided 
royalist predilections, but whether what followed was of 
his contriving I cannot tell : news reached the castle 
somehow that a few parliamentary officers with their men 
were drinking at the White Horse. 

Rowland was in the chapel, listening to the organ, 
having in his illness grown fond of hearing Delaware 
play. The brisker the cannonade, the blind youth 
always praised the louder, and had the main stops now 
in full blast ; but through it all, Scudamore heard the 
sound of horses’ feet on the stones, and running along 
the minstrels’ gallery and out on the top of the porch, 
saw over fifty horsemen in the court, all but ready to 
start. He flew to his chamber, caught up his sword and 
pistols, and without waiting to put on any armor, hurried 
to the stables, laid hold of the first horse he came to, 
which was fortunately saddled and bridled, and was in 


. A SALLY. 475 

time to follow the last man out of the court before the 
gate was closed behind the issuing troop. 

The parliamentary officers were just mounting, when 
their sentinel, who had run again into the road to listen, 
for it was now too dark to see further than a few yards, 
came running back with the alarm that he heard the feet 
of a considerable body of horse in the direction of the 
castle. Richard, whose mare stood unfastened at the 
door, was on her back in a moment. Being unarmed, 
save a brace of pistols in his holsters, he thought he 
could best serve them by galloping to captain Hooper 
and bringing help, for the castle party would doubtless 
outnumber them. Scarcely was he gone, however, and 
half the troopers were not yet in their saddles, when the 
place was surrounded by three times their number. 
Those who were already mounted, escaped and rode 
after Heywood, a few got into a field where they hid 
themselves in the tall corn, and the rest barricaded the 
inn door, and manned the windows. There they held 
out for some time, frequent pistol shots being inter- 
changed without much injury to either side. At length, 
however, the marquis’s men had all but succeeded in 
forcing the door, when they were attacked in the rear 
by Richard with some thirty horse from the trenches, 
and the runaways of colonel Morgan’s men, who had 
met them and turned with them. A smart combat en- 
sued, lasting half an hour, in which the parliament men 
had the advantage. Those who had lost their horses 
recovered them, and a royalist was taken prisoner. 
From him Richard took his sword, and rode after the 
retreating cavaliers. 

One of their number, a little in the rear, supposing 
Richard to be one of themselves, allowed him to get 
ahead of him, and, facing about, cut him off from his 
companions. It was the second time he had headed 


476 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


Scudamore, and again he did not know him, this time 
because it was dark. Rowland, however, recognized his 
voice as he called him to surrender, and rushed fiercely 
at him. But scarcely had they met when the cavalier, 
whose little strength had ere this all but given way to 
the unwonted fatigue, was suddenly overcome with faint- 
ness, and dropped from his horse. Richard got down, 
lifted him, laid him across Lady’s shoulders, mounted, 
raised him into a better position, and, leading the other 
horse, brought him back to the inn. There first he dis- 
covered that he was his prisoner whom he feared he had 
killed at Naseby. 

When Rowland came to himself, 

“Are you able to ride a few miles, Mr. Scudamore?” 
asked Richard. 

At first Rowland was too much chagrined, finding in 
whose power he was, to answer. 

“ I am your prisoner,” he said at length. “ You are 
my evil genius, I think. I have no choice. Thy star is 
in the ascendant, and mine has been going down ever 
since first I met thee, Richard Heywood.” 

Richard attempted no reply, but got Rowland’s horse, 
and assisted him to mount. 

“ I want to do you a good turn, Mr. Scudamore,” he 
said, after they had ridden a mile in silence. 

“ I look for nothing good at thy hand,” said Scuda- 
more. 

“ When thou findest what it is, I trust thou wilt change 
thy thought of me, Mr. Scudamore.” 

“ Sir Rowland , an’ it please you,” said the prisoner, 
his boyish vanity roused by misfortune, and passing itself 
upon him for dignity. 

“Mere ignorance must be pardoned, sir Rowland,” 
returned Richard : “ I was unaware of your dignity. 
But think you, sir Rowland, you do well to ride on such 


A SALLY. 477 

rough errands, while yet not recovered, as is but too 
plain to see, from former wounds ?” 

“ It seems not, Mr. Heywood, for I had not else been 
your prize, I trust. The wound I caught at Naseby has 
cost the king a soldier, I fear.” 

“I hope it will cost no more than is already paid. 
Men must fight, it seems, but I for one would gladly 
repair, an’ I might, what injuries I had been compelled 
to cause.” 

“I cannot say the like on my part,” returned sir Row- 
land. “ I would I had slain thee !” 

“ So would not I concerning thee — in proof whereof 
do I now lead thee to the best leech I know — one who 
brought me back from death’s door, when through thee, 
if not by thy hand, I was sore wounded. With her, as 
my prisoner, I shall leave thee. Seek not to make thy 
escape, lest, being a witch, as they say of her, she chain 
thee up in alabaster. When thou art restored, go thy 
way whither thou pleasest. It is no longer as it was 
with the cause of liberty : a soldier of hers may now 
afford to release an enemy for whom he has a friend- 
ship.” 

“A friendship!” exclaimed sir Rowland. “And where- 
fore, prithee, Mr. Heywood ? On what ground ?” 

But they had reached the cottage, and Richard made 
no reply. Having helped his prisoner to dismount, led 
him through the garden, and knocked at the door, 

“Here, mother!” he said, as Mrs. Rees opened it, “I 
have brought thee a king’s-man to cure this time.” 

“Praise God!” returned mistress Rees — not that a 
king’s-man was wounded, but that she had him to cure : 
she was an enthusiast in her art. Just as she had de- 
voted herself to the puritan, she now gave all her care 
and ministration to the royalist. She got her bed ready 
for him, asked him a few questions, looked at his shoul- 


478 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


der, not even yet quite healed, said it had not been well 
managed, and prepared a poultice, which smelt so vilely 
that Rowland turned from it with disgust. But the old 
woman had a singular power of persuasion, and at length 
he yielded, and in a few moments was fast asleep. 

Calling the next morning, Richard found him very 
weak — partly from the unwonted fatigue of the previous 
day, and partly from the old woman’s remedies, which 
were causing the wound to threaten suppuration. But 
somehow he had become well satisfied that she knew 
what she was about, and showed no inclination to 
rebel. 

For a week or so, he did not seem to improve. Rich- 
ard came often, sat by his bedside, and talked with him ; 
but the moment he grew angry, called him names, or 
abused his party, would rise without a word, mount his 
mare, and ride home — to return the next morning as if 
nothing unpleasant had occurred. 

After about a week, the patient began to feel the 
benefit of the wise woman’s treatment. The suppuration 
carried so much of an old ever haunting pain with it, 
that he was now easier than he had ever been since his 
return to Raglan. But his behavior to Richard grew 
very strange, and the roundhead failed to understand it. 
At one time it was so friendly as to be almost affection- 
ate ; at another he seemed bent on doing and saying 
everything he could to provoke a duel. For another 
whole week, aware of the benefit he was deriving from 
the witch, as he never scrupled to call her, nor in the 
least offended her thereby, apparently also at times 
fascinated in some sort by the visits of his enemy, as he 
persisted in calling Richard, he showed no anxiety to be 
gone. 

“ Heywood,” he said one morning suddenly, with quite 
a new familiarity, “ dost thou consider I owe thee an 


A SALL Y. 479 

apology for carrying off thy mare ? Tell me what look 
the thing beareth to thee ?” 

“Put thy case, Scudamore,” returned Richard. 

And sir Rowland did put his case, starting from the 
rebel state of the owner, advancing to the natural out- 
lawry that resulted, going on to the necessity of the king, 
&c., and ending thus . 

“ Now I know thou regardest neither king nor right, 
therefore I ask thee only to tell me how it seemeth to 
thee I ought on these grounds to judge myself, for of thy 
judgment in thy own person and on thy own grounds, 
or rather no grounds, I force as little as of thy favor or 
thy enmity.” 

“ Come, then, let it be but a question of casuistry. 
Yet I fear me it will be difficult to argue without break- 
ing bounds. Would my lord marquis now walk forth of 
his castle at the king’s command as certainly as he will 
at the voice of the nation, that is, the cannons of the 
parliament 

“ The cannons of the cursed parliament are not the 
voice of the nation. Our side is the nation, not yours.” 

“ How provest thou that ?” 

“ We are the better born, to begin with.” 

“Ye have the more titles, I grant ye, but we have the 
older families. Let it be, however, that I was, or am a 
rebel — then I can only say that in stealing — no, I will 
not say stealing , for thou didst it with a different mind — 
all I will say is this, sir Rowland, that I should have 
scorned so to carry off thine or any man’s horse.” 

“ Ah, but thou wouldst have had no right, being but a 
rebel !” 

“ Bethink thee, thou must judge on my grounds when 
thou judgest me.” 

“ True ; then am I driven to say thou wast made of 
the better earth — curse thee ! I am ashamed of having 


480 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


taken thy mare — only because in a half friendly passage 
with thee it was I learned her worth. But, hang thee ! 
it was not through thee I learned to know my cousin, 
Dorothy Vaughan.” 

The recoiling blood stung Richard’s heart like the 
blow of a whip, but he manned himself to answer with 
coolness. 

“ What then of her ?” he said. “ Hast thou been 
wooing her favor, sir Rowland ? Thou owest me noth- 
ing there, I admit, even had she not sent me from her. 
Besides, I am scarce one to be content with a mistress 
whose favor depended on the not coming between of 
some certain other, known or unknown. This I say not 
in pride, but because in such case I were not the right 
man for her, neither she the one woman for me.”. 

“ Then thou bearest me no grudge in that I have 
sought the prize of my cousin’s heart?” 

“ None,” answered Richard, but could not bring him- 
self to ask how he had sped. 

“ Then will I own to thee that I have gained as little. 
*1 will madden myself telling thee whom I hate, and to 
thy comfort, that she despises me like any Virginia 
slave.” 

“ Nay, that I am sure she doth not. She can despise 
nothing that is honorable.” 

" Dost thou then count me honorable, Heywood ?” 
said Scudamore, in a voice of surprise, putting forth a 
thin white hand, and placing it on Richard’s where it lay 
huge and brown on the coverlid. “ — Then honorable I 
will be.” 

“And, in that resolve, art, sir Rowland.” 

“I will be honorable,” repeated Scudamore angrily, 
with flushing cheek, and hard yet flashing eye, “ because 
thou thinkest me such, although my hate would, an’ it 
might, damn thee to lowest hell.” 


A SALLY. 


481 


“Nay, but thou wilt be honorable for honor’s sake,” 
said Richard. “ Bethink thee, when first we met, we 
were but boys : now we are men, and must put away 
boyish things.” 

“ Dost call it a boyish thing to be madly in love with 
the fairest and noblest and bravest mistress that ever 
trod the earth — though she be half a puritan, alack?” 

“ She half a puritan !” exclaimed Heywood. “ She 
hates the very wind of the word.” 

“ She may hate the word, but she is the thing. She 
hath read me such lessons as none but a puritan could.” 

“ Were they not then good lessons, that thou joinest 
with them a name hateful to thee?” 

“Ay, truly — much too good for mortal like me — or 
thee either, Heywood. They are but hypocrites that 
pretend otherwise.” 

“ Callest thou thy cousin a hypocrite?” 

“ No, by heaven i she is not. She is a woman, and it 
is easy for women to say prayers.” 

“I never rode into a fight but I said my prayers,” 
returned Richard. 

“None the less art thou a hypocrite. I should scorn 
to be for ever begging favors as thou. Dost think God 
heareth such prayers as thine ? ” 

“ Not if he be such as thou, sir Rowland, and not if 
he who prays be such as thou thinkest him. Prithee, 
what sort of prayer thinkest thou I pray ere I ride into 
the battle ?” 

“ How should I know ? My lord marquis would have 
had me say my prayers at such a time, but, good sooth ! 
I always forgot. And if I had done it, where would 
have been the benefit thereof, so long as thou, who wast 
better used to the work, wast praying against me? I 
say it is a cowardly thing to go praying into the battle, 
and not take thy fair chance as other men do.” 
v 


482 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


“ Then will I tell thee to what purpose I pray. But, 
first of all, I must confess to thee that I have had my 
doubts, not whether my side were more in the right than 
thine, but whether it were worth while to raise the sword 
even in such cause. Now, still when that doubt cometh, 
ever it taketh from my arm the strength, and going 
down into the very legs of my mare causeth that she 
goeth dull, although willing, into the battle. Moreover 
I am no saint, and therefore cannot pray like a saint, but 
only like Richard Heywood, who hath got to do his 
duty, and is something puzzled. Therefore pray I thus, 
or to this effect : 

“ ‘ O God of battles ! who, thyself dwelling in peace, 
beholdest the strife, and workest thy will thereby, what 
that good and perfect will of thine is, I know not clearly, 
*but thou hast sent us to be doing, and thou hatest 
cowardice. Thou knowest I have sought to choose the 
best, so far as goeth my poor ken, and to this battle I 
am pledged. Give me grace to fight like a soldier of 
thine, without wrath and without fear. Give me to do 
my duty, but give the victory where thou pleasest. Let 
me live if so thou wilt ; let me die if so thou wilt — only 
let me die in honor with thee. Let the truth be victor- 
ious, if not now, yet when it shall please thee ; and oh ! 
I pray let no deed of mine delay its coming. Let my 
work fail, if it be unto evil, but save my soul in 
truth.’ 

“ And, in truth, sir Rowland, it seemeth to me then as 
if the God of truth heard me. Then say I to my mare, 
‘Come, Lady, all is well now. Let us go. And good 
will come of it to thee also, for how should the Father 
think of his sparrows and forget his mares ? Doubtless 
there are of thy kind in heaven, else how should the 
apostle have seen them there ? And if any, surely thou, 
my Lady!’ So ride we to the battle, merry, and strong, 


A SALLY , . 483 

and calm, as if we were but riding to the rampart of the 
celestial city.” 

Rowland lay gazing at Richard for a few moments, 
then said : 

“ By heaven, but it were a pity you should not come 
together ! Surely the same spirit dwelleth in you both ! 
For me, I should show but as the shadow cast from her 
brightness. But I tell thee, roundhead, I love her better 
than ever roundhead could.” 

“ I know not, Scudamore. Nor do I mean to judge thee 
when I say that no man who loves not the truth can love a 
woman in the grand way a woman ought to be loved.” 

“ Tell me not I do not love her, or I will rise and kill 
thee. I love her even to doing what my soul hateth for 
her sake. — Damned roundhead, she loves thee” 

The last words came from him almost in a shriek, and 
he fell back panting. 

Richard sat silent for a few moments, his heart surging 
and sinking. Then he said quietly : 

“ It may be so, sir Rowland. We were boy and girl 
together — fed rabbits, flew kites, planted weeds to make 
flowers of them, played at marbles : she may love me a 
little, roundhead as I am.” 

“ By heaven, I will try her once more ! Who knows 
the heart of a woman?” said Rowland through his teeth. 

“ If thou should gain her, Scudamore, and afterward 
she should find thee unworthy?” 

“ She would love me still.” 

“ And break her heart for thee, and leave thee young 
to marry another — while I ” 

He laughed a low, strangely musical laugh, and ceased 
— then resumed : 

“But what if, instead of dying, she should learn to 
despise thee, finding thou hadst not only deceived her 
but deceived thy better self, and should turn from thee 


484 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


with loathing, while thou didst love her still — as well as 
thy nature could ? — What then, sir Rowland ?” 

“Then I should kill her.” 

“And thou lovest her better than any roundhead 
could ! I will find thee man after man from amongst 
Ireton’s or Cromwell’s horse — I know not the foot so 
well : — fanatic enough they are God knows ! and many 
of them fools enough to boot ! — but I will find thee man 
after man who is fanatic or fool enough, which thou wilt, 
to love better than thou, thou poor atom of solitary 
selfishness !” 

Rowland half flung himself from the bed, seized Rich- 
ard by the throat, and with all the strength he could 
summon, did his best to strangle him. For a time Rich- 
ard allowed him to spend his rage, then removed his 
grasp as gently as he could, and holding both his wrists 
in his left hand, rose and stood over him. 

“ Sir Rowland,” he said, “ I am not angry with thee 
that thou art weak and passionate. But bethink thee — 
thou best in God’s hands a thousandfold more helpless 
than now thou best in mine, and like Saul of Tarsus 
thou wilt find it hard to kick against the pricks. For 
the maiden, do as thou wilt, for- thou canst not do other 
than the will of God. But I thank thee for what thou 
hast told me, though I doubt it meaneth little better for 
me than for thee. Thou hast a kind heart. I almost 
love thee, and will when I can.” 

He let go his hands, and walked from the room. 

“Canting hypocrite!” cried sir Rowland in the wrath 
of impotence, but knew while he said the words that 
they were false. 

And with the words the bitterness of life seized his 
heart, and his despair shrouded the world in the black- 
ness of darkness. There was nothing more to live for, 
and he turned his face to the wall. 


CHAPTER LI. 


UNDER THE MOAT. 

I T was some time ere they discovered .that Scudamore 
was missing from the castle, but there was the hope 
that he had been taken prisoner , and things were grow- 
ing so bad within the walls, that there was little leisure 
for lamentation over individual misfortunes . unless some 
change, as entire as unexpected — for there seemed no 
chance of any except the king should win over the Scots 
to take his part — should occur, it was evident that the 
enemy must speedily make the assault, nor could there 
be a doubt of their carrying the place — an anticipation 
which, as the inevitable drew nearer, became nothing 
less than terrible to both household and garrison. True, 
their conquerors would be of their own people, but 
battle and bloodshed and victory, and, worst of all, 
party-spirit, the marquis knew, destroy not nationality 
merely, but humanity as well, rousing into full possession 
the feline beast which has his lair in every man — in 
many, it is true, dwindled to the household cat, but in 
many others a full sized, only sleepy tiger. To what 
was he about to expose his men, not to speak of his 
ladies and their children ! 

On the other hand, ever since the balls had been 
flying about his house, and the stones of it leaving their 
places to keep them company, the loyalty of the marquis 
had been rising, and he had thought of his prisoner-king 
ever with growing tenderness, of his faults with more 
indulgence, and of the wrongs he had done his family 


486 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


with more magnanimity and forgiveness, so that, for his 
own part, he would have held out to the very last. 

“ And truly were it not better to be well buried under 
the ruins,” he would say to himself, looking down with 
a sigh at his great bulk, which added so much to the 
dismalness of the prospect of being, in his seventieth 
year, a prisoner or a wanderer — the latter a worse fate 
even than the former. To be no longer the master of 
his own great house, of a many willing servants, of all 
ready appliances for liberty and comfort, while the 
weight of his clumsy person must still hang about him, 
and his unfitness to carry the same go on increasing with 
the bulk to be carried — such a prospect required some- 
thing more than loyalty to meet it with equanimity. To 
the young and strong, adventure ought always to be 
more attractive than ease, but none save those who are 
themselves within sight of old age can truly imagine 
what an utter horror the breach of old habits and loss of 
old comforts is to the aged. 

But to the good marquis it was consolation enough to 
repeat to himself the text from his precious Vulgate. 
Scimus enim : For we know that if our earthly house of 
this tabernacle were dissolved , we have a building of God , 
an house not made with hands , eternal in the heavens. 

For the ladies, so long as their father-chief was with 
them, they were at least not too anxious. Whatever was 
done must be the right thing, and in the midst of tumult 
and threat they were content. If only their Edward 
had been with them too ! 

But surrender, even when the iron shot was driving 
his stately house into showers of dirt, the marquis found 
it hard indeed to contemplate. The eastern side of the 
stone court was now little better than a heap of rubbish, 
and the hour of assault could not be far off, although as 
yet there had been no second summons, but he could 


UNDER THE MOAT. 


48 ? 


not forget that, though the castle was his, it was not for 
himself but for his king he held it garrisoned, and how 
could he yield it without the approval of his sovereign ? 
The governor shared in the same chivalry with his father, 
and was equally anxious for a word from the king. But 
that king was a prisoner in the hands of a hostile nation, 
and how was he to receive message or return answer ? 
Nay, how were they to send message or receive answer, 
not even knowing with certainty where his majesty was, 
and but presuming that he was still at Newcastle? And 
not to mention difficulties at every step of the way, their 
house itself was so beset that no one could issue from its 
gates without risk of being stopped, searched, detained 
until it should have fallen. For the besiegers knew well 
enough that lord Glamorgan was still in Ireland, strain- 
ing his utmost on behalf of the king, and what more 
likely than that he should, with the men he was still 
raising in Ireland, make some desperate attempt to turn 
the scales of war, striking first, it might well be, for the 
relief of his father’s castle ? 

These things were all pretty freely spoken of in the 
family, and Dorothy understood the position of affairs as 
well as any one. And now at length it seemed to her 
that the hour had arrived for attempting some return for 
Raglan’s hospitality. No service she had hitherto stum- 
bled upon had any magnitude in her eyes, but now — to 
be the bearer of dispatches to the king ! — It would 
suffice at least, even if it turned out a failure, to prove 
her not ungrateful. But she too had her confidant, and 
in the absence of lord Glamorgan would consult with 
Caspar. 

Meantime the marquis had made matters worse by 
sending a request to colonel Morgan that he would grant 
safe passage for a messenger to the king, without whose 
command he was not at liberty to surrender the place. 


488 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


The answer was to the effect that they acknowledged no 
jurisdiction of the king in the business, and that the 
marquis might keep his mind easy as far as his supposed 
duty to his majesty was concerned, for they would so 
compel a surrender that there could be no reflection 
upon him for making it. 

Caspar, fearful of the dangers she would have to en- 
counter, sought to disstiade Dorothy from her meditated 
proposal — but feebly, for every one who had anything 
noble in his nature, and Caspar had more than his share, 
was influenced by the magnanimity that ruled the place. 
Indeed he told her one thing which served to clench her 
resolution — that there was a secret way out of the castle, 
provided by his master Glamorgan for communication 
during siege : more he was not at liberty to disclose. 
Dorothy went straight to the marquis and laid her plan 
before him, which was that she should make her escape 
to Wyfern, and thence, attended by an old servant, set 
out to seek the king. 

“There is no longer time, alas!” returned the mar- 
quis. “ I look for the final summons every hour.” 

“ Could you not raise the report, my lord, that you 
have undermined the castle, and laid a huge quantity of 
gunpowder, with the determination of blowing it up the 
moment they enter ? That would make them fall back 
upon blockade, and leave us a little time. Our provis- 
ions are not nearly exhausted, and when fodder fails, we 
can eat the horses first.” 

“ Thou art a brave lady, cousin Dorothy,” said the 
marquis. “ But if they caught and searched thee, and 
found papers upon thee, it would go worse with us than 
before.” 

“ Please your lordship, my lord Glamorgan once 
showed me such a comb as a lady might carry in her 
pocket, but so contrived that the head thereof was 


UNDER THE MOAT. 


489 


hollow and could contain dispatches. Methinks Caspar 
could lay his hand on the comb. — If I were but at 
Wyfern ! and thither my little horse would carry me in 
less than hour, giving all needful time for caution too, 
my lord !” 

“By George, thou speakest well, cousin !” said the 
marquis. “ But who should attend thee?” 

“ Let me have Tom Fool, my lord, for now have I 
thought of a betterment of my plan : he will guide me 
to his mother’s house by by-ways, and thence can I 
cross the fields to my own — as easily as the great hall, 
my lord.” 

“Tom Fool is a mighty coward,” objected the mar- 
quis. 

“ So much the better, my lord. He will not get me 
into trouble through displaying his manhood before me. 
He hath besides a face long enough for three round- 
heads, and a tongue that can 4 utter glibly enough what 
soundeth very like their jargon. Tom is the right fool 
to attend me, my lord.” 

“ He can’t ride ; he never backed a horse in his life, I 
believe. No, no, Dorothy. Shafto is the man.” 

“ Shafto is much too ready, my lord. He would ride 
over my hounds. I want Tom no farther than his 
mother’s, and there will be no need for him to ride.” 

“ Well, it is a brave offer, my child, and I will think 
thereupon,” said his lordship. 

All the rest of the day the marquis and lord Charles, 
with two or three of the principal officers of house and 
garrison, were in conference, and letters were written 
both to his majesty and lord Glamorgan. Before they 
were finally written out in cipher Kaltoff was sent for, 
the comb found, its content gauged, and the paper cut 
to suit. 

About an hour after midnight, Dorothy, lord Charles, 


490 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


and Caspar stood together in the workshop, waiting for 
Tom Fool, who had gone to fetch Dick from the stables. 
Dorothy had the comb in her pocket. She looked pale, 
but her gray eyes shone with courage and determi- 
nation. She carried nothing but a whip. A keen little 
lamp borne by Caspar was all their light. 

Presently they heard the sound of Dick’s hoofs on the 
bridge. A moment more and Tom led him in, both 
man and horse looking somewhat scared at the strange- 
ness of the midnight proceeding. But Tom was, notwith- 
standing, glad of the office, and ready to risk a good 
deal in order to get out of the castle, where he expected 
nothing milder at last than a general massacre. 

Lord Charles himself lifted foot after foot of the little 
horse to be satisfied that his shoes were sound, then 
made a sign to Caspar, and gave his hand to Dorothy. 
Caspar took Dick by the bridle, and led him up to the 
wall near the door. Lord ‘Charles and Dorothy followed. 
But Tom, observing that they placed themselves within 
a chalk-drawn circle, hung back in terror; he fancied 
Caspar was going to raise the devil. Yet he knew 
that within the circle was the only safety, a word 
from Dorothy turned the scale, and he stood trembling 
by her side. Nor was he greatly consoled to find that, 
as he now thought, instead of the devil coming to them, 
they were going to him, as, with the circle upon which 
they stood, they began to sink, through a stone-faced 
shaft, slowly into the foundations of the keep. Dick 
also was frightened, but happily his faith was stronger 
than his imagination, and a word now and then from his 
mistress, with an occasional pat from her well-known 
hand, sufficed to keep him quiet. 

At the depth of about thirty feet they stopped, and 
found themselves facing a ponderous door, studded and 
barred with iron. Caspar took from his pocket a key 


UNDER THE MOAT. 


491 


about the size of a goose quill, felt about for a moment, 
and then with a slight movement of finger and thumb 
threw back a dozen ponderous bolts with a great echo- 
ing clang ; the door slowly opened, and they entered a 
narrow vaulted passage of stone. Lord Charles took 
the lamp from Caspar, and led the way with Dorothy : 
Tom Fool came next, and Caspar followed with Dick. 
The lamp showed but a few feel* of the walls and roof, 
and revealed nothing in front until they had gone about 
a furlong, when it shone upon what seemed the live rock, 
ending their way. But again Caspar applied the little 
key somewhere, and immediately a great mass of rock 
slowly turned on a pivot, and permitted them to pass. 

When they were all on the other side of it, lord 
Charles turned and held up the light. Dorothy turned 
also and looked : there was nothing to indicate whence 
they had come. Before her was the rough rock, seem- 
ingly solid, certainly slimy and green, and over its face 
was flowing a tiny rivulet. 

“ See there,” said lord Charles, pointing up ; “ that 
little stream comes the way thy dog Marquis and the 
roundhead Heywood came and went. But I challenge 
anything larger than a rat to go now.” 

Dorothy made no answer, and they went on again for 
some distance in a passage like the former, but soon 
arrived at the open quarry, whence Tom knew the way 
across the fields to the high road as well, he said, as the 
line of life on his own palm. Lord Charles lifted Doro- 
thy to the saddle, said good luck and good bye, and 
stood with Caspar watching as she rode up the steep 
ascent, until for an instant her form stood out dark 
against the sky, then vanished, when they turned and 
re-entered the castle. 


THE UNTOOTHSOME PLUM. 493 

yet he goeth with many for a born fool. A parlous 
coward he is, else might he now be fighting the Amalek- 
ites with the sword of the Lord and of Gideon. Yet 
in good sooth he serveth me well for the nonce.” 

The sentry glanced at Tom, but could see little of him 
except a long white oval, and Tom was now collected 
enough to put in exercise his best wisdom, which con- 
sisted in holding his tongue. 

“ Answer me then, mistress, how, being a godly woman, 
as I doubt not from thy speech thou art, thee rides thus 
late with none but a fool to keep thee company ? 
Knowest thou not that the country is full of soldiers, 
whereof some, though that they be all true-hearted and 
right-minded men, would not mayhap carry themselves 
so civil to a woman as corporal Bearbanner ? And now, 
I bethink me, thou comest from the direction of Rag- 
lan !” 

Here he drew himself up, summoned a voice from his 
chest a story or two deeper, and asked in magisterial 
tone : 

“Whence comest thou, woman? and on what business 
gaddest thou so late ?” 

“ I come from visiting at a friend’s house, and am now 
almost on my own farm,” answered Dorothy. 

The man turned to Tom, and Dorothy began to regret 
she had brought him : he was trembling visibly and his 
mouth was wide open with terror. 

“ See,” she said, “ how thy gruff voice terrifieth the 
innocent ! If now he should fall in a fit thou wert to 
blame.” 

As she spoke she put her hand in her pocket, and 
taking from it her untoothsome plum, popped it into 
Tom’s mouth. Instantly he began to make such strange 
uncouth noises that the sentinel thought he Lad indeed 
terrified him into a fit. 


CHAPTER LIT. 


THE UNTOOTHSOME PLUM. 

I T was a starry night, with a threatening of moonrise, 
and Dorothy was anxious to reach the cottage before 
it grew lighter. But they must not get into the high 
road at any nearer point than the last practical, for then 
they would be more likely to meet soldiers and Dick’s 
feet to betray their approach. Over field after field, 
therefore, they kept on, as fast as Tom, now and then 
stopping to peer anxiously over the next fence or into a 
boundary ditch, could lead the way. At last they 
reached the place by the side of a bridge where Marquis 
led Richard off the road, and there they scrambled up. 

■ “ O Lord !” cried Tom, and waked a sentry dozing on 

the low parapet. , 

“ Who goes there ?” he cried, starting up, and catch- 
ing at his carbine which leaned against the wall. 

“Oh, master!” began Tom, in a voice of terrified 
appeal ; but Dorothy interrupted him. 

“ I am an honest woman of the neighborhood,” she 
said. “ An’ thou wilt come home with me, I will afford 
thee a better bed than thou hast there, and also a better 
breakfast, I warrant thee, than thou had a supper.” 

“ That is, an’ thou be one of the godly,” supplemented 
Tom. 

“I thank thee, mistress,” returned the sentinel, “but 
not for the indulgence of carnal appetite will I forsake 
my post. Who is he goeth with thee ?” 

“ A fellow whose wit is greater than his courage, and 


494 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


“ I must get him straightway home. Good night, 
friend,” said Dorothy, and giving Dick the rein, she was 
off like the wind, heedless of the shouts of the sentinel 
or the feeble cries of pursuing Tom, who, if he could not 
fight, could run. Following his mistress at great speed, 
he was instantly lost in the darkness, and the sentinel, 
who had picketed his horse in a neighboring Held, sat 
down again on the parapet of the bridge, and began to 
examine all that Dorothy had said with a wondrous 
inclination to discover the strong points in it. 

Having galloped a little way Dorothy drew bridle and 
halted for Tom. As soon as he came up, she released 
him, and telling him to lay hold of Dick’s mane and run 
alongside, kept him at a fast trot all the way to his 
mother’s house. 

The moon had risen before they reached it, and Dor- 
othy was therefore glad when she dismounted at the 
gate to think she need ride no farther. But while Tom 
went in to rouse his mother, she let Dick have a few 
bites of the grass before taking him into the kitchen — 
lest the roundheads should find him. The next moment, 
however, out came Tom in terror, saying there was a 
man in his mother’s closet, and he feared the roundheads 
were in possession. 

“Then take care of thyself, Tom,” said Dorothy, and 
mounting instantly, she made Dick, scramble up into the 
fields that lay between the cottage and her own house, 
and set off at full speed across the grass in the moonlight 
— an ethereal pleasure which not even an anxious secret 
could blast. 

Through a gap in the hedge she had just popped into 
the second field, when she heard the click of a flint-lock, 
and a voice she thought she knew, ordering her to 
stand : within a few yards of her was again a roundhead 
soldier. If she rode away he would fire at her; that 


THE UNTOOTHSOME PLUM. 


495 


mode of escape therefore she would keep for a last 
chance. The moon by this time was throwing an un- 
clouded light from more than half a disk upon the field. 

Keeping a sharp eye upon the man’s movements, she 
allowed him to come within a pace or two, but the mo- 
ment he would have taken Dick by the bridle, she was 
three or four yards away. 

“ Fright not my horse, friend,” she said. — “But how!” 
she added, suddenly remembering him. “ Is it possible ? 
Master Upstill ! Gently, gently, little Dick ! Master 
Upstill is an old friend. — What ! hast thou too turned 
soldier ? Left thy last and lapstone, and turned soldier, 
master Upstill ?” 

“ I have left all and followed him, mistress,” answered 
Castdown. 

“Art sure he called thee, master Upstill?” 

“I heard him with my own ears.” 

“ Called thee to be a shedder of blood, master Up- 
still?” 

“ Called me to be a fisher of men, and thee I catch, 
mistress — thus,” returned the man, stepping quickly for- 
ward and making another grasp at Dick’s bridle. 

It was all Dorothy could do to keep herself from 
giving him a smart blow across the face with her whip, 
and riding off. But she gave Dick the cut instead, and 
sent him yards away. 

“Poor Dick! poor Dick !” she said, patting his neck; 
“be quiet; master Upstill will do thee no wrong. Be 
quiet, little man.” 

As she thus talked to her genet, Upstill again drew 
near, now more surly than at first. 

“Say what manner of woman art thou?” he demand- 
ed, with pompous anger. “Whence comes thou, and 
whither does thee go?” 

“ Home,” answered Dorothy. 


496 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


‘‘What place calls thee home?” 

“ Why ! dost not know me, master Upstill ? When I 
was a little one, thou didst make my shoes for me.” 

“ I trust it will be forgiven me, mistress. Truly I had 
ne’er made shoe for thee an’ I had foreseen what thee 
would come to ! For I make no farther doubt thou art 
a consorter with malignants, harlots, and papists.” 

Again he clutched at her bridle, and this time, whether 
it was Dorothy’s or Dick’s fault, with success. Dorothy 
dropped the bridle, put her hand in her pocket, struck 
Dick smartly with her whip, and as he reared in conse- 
quence, drew it across Upstill’s eyes, and so found the 
chance of administering her bolus. 

It was thoroughly effective. The fellow left his hold 
of the bridle, and began a series of efforts to remove it, 
which rapidly grew wilder and wilder, until at last his 
gestures were those of a maniac. 

“There !” she cried, as she bounded from him, “take 
thy first lesson in good manners. No one can rid thee 
of that mouthful, which is as thy evil words returned to 
choke thee ! — Thou hadst better keep me in sight,” she 
added, as she gave Dick his head, “ for no one else can 
free thee.” 

Upstill ceased his futile efforts, caught up his carbine, 
and fired — not without risk to Dorothy, for he was far 
too wrathful to take the aim that would have insured her 
safety. But she rode on unhurt, meditating how to 
secure Upstill when she got him to Wyfern, whither she 
doubted not he would follow her. Her difficulties were 
not yet past, however, for just as she reached her own 
ground, she was once again met by the order to stand. 

This time it came in a voice which, notwithstanding 
the anxiety it brought with it, was almost as welcome as 
well-known, and yet made her tremble for the first time 
that night : it was the voice of Richard Hey wood. Dick 


THE UN TOOTHSOME PLUM. 


497 


also seemed to know it, for he stood without a hint from 
his mistress, while, through the last hedge that parted 
her from the little yet remaining of the property of her 
fathers, came the man she loved — an enemy between her 
and her own. 

The marquis’s request to be allowed to communicate 
with the king had been an unfortunate one. It increased 
suspicion of all kinds, rendered the various reports of 
the landing of the Irish army under lord Glamorgan 
more credible, roused the resolution to render all com- 
munication impossible, and led to the drawing of a 
cordon around the place that not a soul should pass 
unquestioned. The measure would indeed have been 
unavailing had the garrison been as able as formerly to 
make sallies ; but ever since colonel Morgan received 
his reinforcement, the issuing troopers had been invari- 
ably met at but a few yards from home, and immediately 
driven in again by largely superior numbers. Still the 
cordon required a good many more men than the be- 
sieging party could well spare without too much weaken- 
ing their positions, and they had therefore sought the 
aid of all the gentlemen of puritan politics in the vicinity, 
and of course that of Mr. Heywood. With the men his 
father sent, Richard himself offered his services, in the 
hope that, at the coming fall of the stronghold, he might 
have a chance of being useful to Dorothy. They had 
given the cordon a wide extension, in order that an 
issuing messenger might not perceive his danger until he 
was too far from the castle to regain it, and they by 
capturing him might acquire information. Hence it 
came that posts could be assigned to Richard and his 
men within such a distance of Redware as admitted of 
their being with their own people when off duty. 


CHAPTER LI II. 


FAITHFUL FOES. 

H EARING Upstill’s shot, and then Dick’s hoofs on 
the sward, Richard fortunately judged well and 
took the right direction. What was his astonishment 
and delight when, passing hurriedly through the hedge 
in the expectation of encountering a cavalier, he saw 
Dorothy mounted on Dick ! What form but hers had 
been filling soul and brain when he was startled by the 
shot ! And there she was before him ! He felt like 
one who knows the moon is weaving a dream in his 
brain. 

“ Dorothy,” he murmured tremblingly, and his voice 
sounded to him like that of some one speaking far away. 
He drew nearer, as one might approach a beloved ghost, 
anxious not to scare her. He laid his hand on Dick’s 
neck, half fearful of finding him but a shadow. 

“Richard!” said Dorothy, looking down on him be- 
nignant as Diana upon Endymion. 

Then suddenly, at her voice and the assurance of her 
bodily presence, a great wave from the otean of duty 
broke thunderous on the shore of his consciousness. 

“ Dorothy, I am bound to question thee,” he said : 
“ whence comest thou ? and whither art thou bound ?” 

“If I should refuse to answer thee, Richard?” re- 
turned Dorothy with a smile. 

“Then must I take thee to headquarters. And be- 
think thee, Dorothy, how that would cut me to the 
heart.” 

The moon shone full upon his face, and Dorothy saw 


FAITHFUL FOES. 499 

the end of a great scar that came from under his hat 
down on his forehead. 

“ Then will I answer thee, Richard,” she said, with a 

strange trembling in her voice. “ 1 come from 

Raglan.” 

“And whither art going, Dorothy?” 

“ To Wyfern.” 

“ On what business ?” 

“Were it then so wonderful, Richard, if I should 
desire to be at home, seeing Wyfern is now safer than 
Raglan ? It was for safety I went thither, thou know- 
est.” 

“ It might not be wonderful in another, Dorothy, but 
in thee it were truly wonderful ; for now are they of 
Raglan thy friends, and thou art a brave woman, and 
lovest thy friends. I would not believe it of thee even 
from the mouth of thy mother. Confess — thou bearest 
about thee that thou wouldst not willingly show me.” 

Dorothy, as if in embarrassment, drew from her pocket 
her handkerchief, and with it a comb, which fell on the 
ground. 

“Prithee, Richard, pick me up my comb,” she said, 
then, answering his question, continued, “ — No, I have 
nothing about me I would not show thee, Richard : wilt 
thou take my word for it ?” 

When she had spoken, she held out her hand, and 
receiving from him the comb, replaced it in her pocket. 
But a keen pang of remorse went through her heart. 

“ I am a man under authority,” said Richard, “ and 
my orders will not allow me. Besides thou knowest, 
Dorothy, although it involves such questions in casuistry 
as I cannot meet, men say thou art not bound to tell the 
truth to thine enemy.” 

“ An’ thou be mine enemy, Richard, then must thou 
satisfy thyself,” said Dorothy, trying to speak in a tope 


500 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


of offense. But while she sat there looking at him, it 
seemed as if her heart were floating on the top of a great 
wave out somewhere in the moonlight. Yet the con- 
science-dog was awake in his kennel. 

Richard stood for a moment in silent perplexity. 

“ Wilt thou swear to me, Dorothy,” he said at length, 
“ that thou hast no papers about thee, neither art the 
bearer of news or request or sign to any of the king’s 
party ?” 

“ Richard,” returned Dorothy, “ thou hast thyself taken 
from my words the credit : I say to thee again, satisfy 
thyself.” 

“ Dorothy, what am I to do ?” he cried. 

“Thy duty, Richard,” she answered. 

“ My duty is to search thee,” he said. 

Dorothy was silent. Her heart was beating terribly, 
but she would see the end of the path she had taken, ere 
she would think of turning. And she would trust 
Richard. — Would she then have him fail of his duty ? 
Would she have the straight-going Richard swerve ? 
Even in the face of her maidenly fears, she would 
encounter anything rather than Richard should for 
her sake be false. But Richard would not turn aside. 
Neither would he shame her. He would find some 
way. 

“ Do then thy duty, Richard,” she said, and sliding 
from her saddle, she stood before him, one hand grasp- 
ing Dick’s mane. 

There was no defiance in her tone. She was but sub- 
mitting, assured of deliverance. 

What was Richard to do ? Never man was more per- 
plexed. He dared not let her pass. He dared no more 
touch her than if she had been Luna herself standing 
there. He would not had he dared, and yet he must. 
She was silent, seemed to herself cruel, and began 


FAITHFUL FOES. 


501 


bitterly to accuse herself. She saw his hazel eyes slowly 
darken, then begin to glitter — was it with gathering 
tears ? The glitter grew and overflowed. The man was 
weeping! The tenderness of their common childhood 
rushed back upon her in a great wave out of the past, 
ran into the rising billow of present passion, and swelled 
it up till it towered and broke : she threw her arm round 
his neck and kissed him. He stood in a dumb ecstasy. 
Then terror lest he should think she was tempting him 
to brave his conscience overpowered her. 

“ Richard, do thy duty. Regard not me,” she cried 
in anguish. 

Richard gave a strange laugh as he answered, 

“ There was a time when I had doubted the sun in 
heaven as soon as thy word, Dorothy. This is surely an 
evil time. Tell me, yea or no, hast thou missives to the 
king or any of his people ? Palter not with me.” 

But such an appeal was what Dorothy would least 
willingly encounter. The necessity yet difficulty of 
escaping it stimulated the wits that had been overclouded 
by feeling. A light appeared. She broke into a real 
merry laugh. 

“ What a pair of fools we are, Richard !” she said. 
“ Is there never an honest woman of thy persuasion near 
— one who would show me no favor ? Let such an one 
search me, and tell thee the truth.” 

“ Doubtless,” answered Richard, laughing very differ- 
ently now at his stupidity, yet immediately committing a 
blunder : “ there is mother Rees !” 

“ What a baby art thou, Richard !” rejoined Dorothy. 
“ She is as good a friend of mine as of thine, and would 
doubtless favor the wiles of a woman.” 

“ True, true ! Thou wast always the keener of wit, 
Dorothy — as becometh a woman. What say’st thou then 
to dame Upstill ? She is even now at the farm there, 


502 ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 

whence she watches over her husband while he watches 
over Raglan. Will she answer thy turn?” 

“ She will,” replied Dorothy. “ And that she may 
show me no favor, here comes her husband, who shall 
bear a witness against me shall rouse in her all the 
malice of vengeance for her injured spouse, whom for 
his evil language, as thou shalt see, I have so silenced 
as neither thou nor any man can restore him to speech.” 

While she spoke, Upstill, who had followed his enemy 
as the sole hope of deliverance, drew near, in such plight 
as the dignity of narrative refuses to describe. 

“ Upstill,” said Richard, “what meaneth this ? Where- 
fore hast thou left thy post ? And above all, wherefore 
hast thou permitted this lady to pass unquestioned ?” 

Sounds of gurgle and strangulation, with other cognate 
noises, was all Upstill’s response. 

“ Indeed, Mr. Heywood,” said Dorothy, “ he was so 
far from neglecting his duty and allowing me to pass 
unquestioned, that he insulted me grievously, averring 
that I consorted with malignant rogues and papists, and 
worse — the which drove me to punish him as thou 
seest.” 

“ Cast-down Upstill, thou hast shamed thy regiment, 
carrying thyself thus to a gentlewoman,” said Richard. 

“Then he fired his carbine after me,” said Dorothy. 

“ That may have been but his duty,” returned Rich- 
ard. 

“ And worst of all,” continued Dorothy, “ he said that 
had he known what I should grow to, he would never 
have made shoes for me when I was an infant. — Think 
on that, master Heywood !” 

“Ask the lady to pardon thee, Upstill. I can do 
nothing for thee,” said Richard. 

Upstill would have knelt, in lack of other mode of 
petition strong enough to express the fervor of his 


FAITHFUL FOES. 503 

desires for release, but Dorothy was content to see him 
punished and would not see him degraded. 

“Nay, master Upstill,” she said, “I desire not that 
thon shouldst take the measure of my foot to-night. — 
Prithee, master Heywood, wilt thou venture thy fingers 
in the godly man’s mouth for me ? Here is the key of 
the toy, a sucket which will pass neither teeth nor throat. 
I warrant thee it were no evil thing for many a married 
woman to possess. — I will give it thee when thou marri- 
est, master Heywood, though, good sooth, it were hardly 
fair to my kind!” 

So saying she took a ring from her finger, raised from 
it a key, and directed Richard how to find its hole in 
the plum. 

“ There ! Follow us now to the farm, and find thy 
wife, for we need her aid,” said Richard, as he drew by 
the key the little steel instrument from Upstill’s mouth, 
and restored him to the general body of the articulate. 

Thereupon he took Dick by the bridle, and Dorothy 
and he walked side by side, as if they had been still boy 
and girl as of old — for of old it already seemed. 

As they went, Richard washed both plum and ring in 
the dewy grass, and restored them, putting the ring upon 
her finger. 

“ With better light I will one day show thee how the 
thing worketh,” she said, thanking him. “ Holding it 
thus by the ends, thou seest, it will bear to be pressed ; 
but remove thy finger and thumb, and straight upon a 
touch it shooteth its stings in all directions. And yet 
another day, when these troubles are over and honest 
folk need no longer fight each other, I will give it thee, 
Richard.” 

“ Would that day were here, Dorothy ! But what can 
honest people do, while St. George and St. Michael are 
themselves at odds ?” 


504 ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 

“ Mayhap it but seemeth so, and they but dispute 
across the yule-log,” said Dorothy ; “and men down 
here, like the dogs about the fire, take it up, and fall a 
worrying each other. But the end will crown all.” 

“ Discrown some, I fear,” said Richard to himself. 

As they reached the farm-house, it was growing light. 
Upstill fetched his dame from her bed in the hayloft, 
and Richard told her, in formal and authoritative 
manner, what he required of her. 

“ I will search her!” answered the dame from between 
her closed teeth. 

“ Mistress Vaughan,” said Richard, “ if she offer thee 
evil words, give her the same lesson thou gavest her 
husband. If all tales be true, she is not beyond the 
need of it. — Search her well, mistress Upstill, but show 
her no rudeness, for she hath the power to avenge it in 
a parlous manner, having gone to school to my lord 
Herbert of Raglan. Not the less must thou search her 
well, else will I look upon thee as no better than one of 
the malignants.” 

The woman cast a glance of something very like hate, 
but mingled with fear, upon Dorothy. 

“ I like not the business, captain Heywood,” she said. 

“Yet the business must be done, mistress Upstill. 
And heark’ee, for every paper thou findest upon her, I 
will give thee its weight in gold. I care not what it is. 
Bring it hither, and the dame’s butter-scales withal.” 

“I warrant thee, captain!” she returned. “ — Come 
with me, mistress, and show what thou hast about thee. 
But, good sooth, I would the sun were up !” 

She led the way to the rick-yard, and round towards 
the sunrise. It was the month of August, and several 
new ricks already stood’ facing the east, yellow, and 
beginning to glow like a second dawn. Between the 
two, mistress Upstill began her search, which she made 


FAITHFUL FOES. 505 

more thorough than agreeable. Dorothy submitted with- 
out complaint. 

At last, as she was giving up the quest in despair, her 
eyes or her fingers discovered a little opening inside the 
prisoner’s bodice, and there sure enough was a pocket, 
and in the pocket a slip of paper ! She drew it out in 
triumph. 

“ That is nothing,” said Dorothy : “ give it me.” And 
with flushed face she made a snatch at it. 

“ Holy Mary !” cried dame Upstill, whose protestant- 
ism was of doubtful date, and thrust the paper into her 
own bosom. 

“ That paper hath nothing to do with state affairs, I 
protest,” expostulated Dorothy. “ I will give thee ten 
times its weight in gold for it.” 

But mistress Upstill had other passions besides ava- 
rice, and was not greatly tempted by the offer. She took 
Dorothy by the arm and said, 

“ An’ thou come not quickly, I will cry that all the 
parish shall hear me.” 

“ I tell thee, mistress Upstill, on the oath of a Chris- 
tian woman, it is but a private letter of mine own, and 
beareth nothing upon affairs. Prithee, read a word or 
two, and satisfy thyself.” 

“ Nay, mistress, truly I will pry into no secrets that 
belong not to me,” said her searcher, who could read no 
word of writing or print either. “This paper is no 
longer thine, and mine it never was. It belongeth to 
the high court of parliament, and goeth straight to cap- 
tain Heywood — whom I will inform concerning the bribe 
wherewith thou didst seek to corrupt the conscience of a 
godly woman.” 

Dorothy saw there was no help, and yielded to the 
grasp of the dame, who led her like a culprit, with burn- 
ing cheek, back to her judge, 
w 


506 


S7\ GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


When Richard saw them his heart sunk within him. 

“What hast thou found?” he asked gruffly. 

“ I have found that which young mistress here would 
have had me cover with a bribe of ten times that your 
honor promised me for it,” answered the woman. “ She 
had it in her bosom, hid in a pocket little bigger than a 
crown-piece, inside her bodice.” 

“Ha, mistress Dorothy! is this true?” asked Richard, 
turning on her a face of distress. 

“ It is true,” answered Dorothy, with downcast eyes — ■ 
far more ashamed however of that which had not been 
discovered, and which might have justified Richard’s 
look, than of that which he now held in his hand. 
“ Prithee,” she added, “ do not read it till I am gone.” 

“ That may hardly be,” returned Richard almost sul- 
lenly. “ Upon this paper it may depend whether thou 
go at all.” 

“ Believe me, Richard, it hath no importance,” she 
said, and her blushes deepened. “ I would thou wouldst 
believe me.” 

But as she said it, her conscience smote her. 

Richard returned no answer, neither did he open the 
paper, but stood with his eyes fixed on the ground. 

Dorothy meantime strove to quiet her conscience, 
saying to herself : “ It matters not : I must marry him 
one day — an’ he will now have me. Hath not the woman 
told him where the silly paper was hid ? And when I 
am married to him, then will I tell him all, and doubtless 
he will forgive me. — Nay, nay, I must tell him first, for 
he might not then wish to have me. — Lord ! Lord ! what 
a time of lying it is ! Sure for myself I am no better 
than one of the wicked !” 

But now Richard, slowly, reluctantly, with eyes avert- 
ed, opened the paper, stood for an instant motionless, 
then suddenly raised it, and looked at it. His face 


FAITHFUL FOES. 


507 


changed at once from midnight to morning, and the 
sunrise was red. He put the paper to his lips, and 
thrust it inside his doublet. It was his own letter to her 
by Marquis ! She had not thought to remove it from the 
place where she had carried it ever since receiving it. 

“And now, master Heywood, I may go where I will?” 
said Dorothy, venturing a half-roguish, but wholly 
shamefaced glance at him. 

But dame Upstill was looking on, and Richard there- 
fore brought as much of the midnight as would obey 
orders, back over his countenance as he answered : 

“ Nay, mistress. An’ we had found aught upon thee 
of greater consequence it might have made a question. 
But this hardly accounts for thy mission. Doubtless 
thou bearest thy message in thy mind.” 

“ What ! thou wilt not let me go to Wyfern, to my 
own house, master Heywood ?” said Dorothy in a tone 
of disappointment, for her heart now at length began to 
fail her. 

“ Not until Raglan is ours,” answered Richard. “Then 
shalt thou go where thou wilt. And go where thou wilt, 
there will I follow thee, Dorothy.” 

From the last clause of this speech he diverted Mrs. 
Upstill’s attention by throwing her a gold noble, an 
indignity which the woman rightly resented — but stooped 
for the money ! 

“ Go tell thy husband that I wait him here,” he said. 

“ Thou shalt follow me nowhither,” said Dorothy 
angrily. “ Wherefore should T not go to Wyfern and 
there abide ? Thou canst there watch her whom thou 
trustest not.” 

“ Who can tell what manner of person might not creep 
to Wyfern, to whom there might messages be given, or 
whom thou mightest send, credenced by secret word or 
sign?” 


508 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


“Whither, then, am I to go?” asked Dorothy with 
dignity. 

“Alas, Dorothy!” answered Richard, “there is no 
help : I must take thee to Raglan. But comfort thyself 
— soon shalt thou go where thou wilt.” 

Dorothy marveled at her own resignation the while 
she rode with Richard back to the castle. Her scheme 
was a failure, but through no fault, and she could bear 
anything with composure except blame; 

A word from Richard to colonel Morgan was suffi- 
cient. A messenger with a flag of truce was sent in- 
stantly to the castle, and the firing on both sides ceased. 
The messenger returned, the gate was opened, and 
Dorothy re-entered, defeated, but bringing her secrets 
back with her. 

“ Tit for tat,” said the marquis when she had recount- 
ed her adventures. “ Thou and the roundhead are well 
matched. There is no avoiding of it, cousin ! It is 
your fate, as clear as if your two horoscopes had run 
into one. Mind thee, hearts are older than crowns, and 
love outlives all but leasing.” 

“All but leasing!” repeated Dorothy to herself, and 
the but was bitter. 


CHAPTER LIV. 


DO^US DISSOLVITUR. 


CUDAMORE was now much better, partly from the 



O influence of reviving hopes with regard to Dorothy, 
for his disposition was such that he always deceived 
himself in the direction of what he counted advantage, 
not like Heywood, who was ever ready to believe what 
in matters personal told against him. Tom Fool had 
just been boasting of his exploit in escaping from Rag- 
lan, and expressing his conviction that Dorothy, whom 
he had valiantly protected, was safe at Wyfern, and 
Rowland was in consequence dressing as fast as he could 
to pay her a visit, when Tom caught sight of Richard 
riding towards the cottage, and jumping up, ran into the 
chimney corner beyond his mother, who was busy with 
Scudamore’s breakfast. She looked from the window, 
and spied the cause of his terror. 

“Silly Tom !” she said, for she still treated him like a 
child, notwithstanding her boastful belief in his high 
position and merits, “he will not harm thee. There 
never was hurt in a Heywood.” 

“Treason! flat treason, witch!” cried the voice of 
Scudamore from the closet. 

“ Thee of all men, sir Rowland, has no cause to say 
so,” returned Mrs. Rees. “ But come and break thy 
fast while he talks to thee, and save the precious time 
which runneth so fast away.” 

“ I might as well be in my grave for any value it hath 
to me!” said Rowland, who was for the moment in a 


510 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


bad mood. His hope and his faith weie ever ready to 
fall out, and a twinge in his shoulder was enough to set 
them jarring. 

“ Here comes master Hey wood, anyhow,” said the old 
woman, as Richard, leaving Lady at the gate, came 
striding up the walk in his great brown boots ; “ and I 
pray you, sir Rowland, to let by-gones be by-gones, for 
my sake if not for your own, lest thou bring the ven- 
geance of general Fairfax upon my poor house.” 

“Fairfax!” cried Scudamore; “is that villain come 
hither ?” 

“Sir Thomas Fairfax arrived two days agone,” an- 
swered Mrs. Rees. “ Alas, it is but too sure a sign that 
for Raglan the end is near !” 

“ Good morrow, mother Rees,” said Richard, looking 
in at the door, radiant as an Apollo. The same moment 
out came Scudamore from the closet, pale as a dying 
moon. 

“I want my horse, Heywood,” he cried, deigning no 
preliminaries. 

“ Thy horse is at Redware, Scudamore : I carry him 
not in my pocket. I saw him yesterday : his flesh hath 
swallowed a good many of his bones since I looked on 
him last. What wouldst thou with him?” 

“ What is that to thee ? Let me have him.” 

“ Softly, sir Rowland ! It is true I promised thee thy 
liberty, but liberty doth not necessarily include a horse.” 

“Thou wast never better than a shifting fanatic,” cried 
sir Rowland. 

“An’ I served thee as befitted, thou shouldst never 
see thy horse again,” returned Richard. “Yet I promise 
thee that so soon as Raglan hath fallen, he shall again be 
thine. Nay, I care not. Tell me whither thou goest, 

and Ha! art thou there?” he cried, interrupting 

himself, as he caught sight of Tom in the chimney 


DOM US DISSOLVITUR. 


511 


corner, and pausing, he stood silent for a moment. 
“ — Wouldst like to hear, thou rascal,” he resumed pres- 
ently, “ that mistress Dorothy Vaughan got safe to Wy- 
fern this morning?” 

“ God be praised !” said Tom Fool. 

“ But thou shalt not hear it. I will tell thee better if 
less welcome news — that I come from conducting her 
back to Raglan in safety, and have seen its gates close 
upon her. — Thou shalt have thy horse, sir Rowland, an’ 
thou can wait for him an hour; but for thy ride to 
Wyfern, that, thou seest, would not avail thee. Thy 
cousin rode by here this morning, it is true, but, as I 
say, she is now within Raglan walls, whence she will not 
issue again until the soldiers of the parliament enter. It 
is no treason to tell thee that general Fairfax is about to 
send his final summons ere he storm the rampart.” . 

“ Then mayst thou keep the horse, for I will back to 
Raglan on foot,” said Scudamore. 

“ Nay, that wilt thou not, for naught greatly larger 
than a mouse can any more pass through the lines. 
Dost think because I sent back thy cousin Dorothy, lest 
she should work mischief outside the walls, I will there- 
fore send thee back to work mischief within them ?” 

“ And thou art the man who professeth to love mis- 
tress Dorothy !” cried Scudamore with contempt. 

“ Hark thee, sir Rowland, and for thy good I will tell 
thee more. It is but just that as I told thee my doubts, 
whence thou didst draw hope, I should now tell thee my 
hopes, whence thou mayst do well to draw a little 
doubt.” 

“Thou art a mean and treacherous villain!” cried 
Scudamore. 

“ Thou art to blame in speaking that thou dost not 
believe, sir Rowland. But wilt thou have thy horse or 
no?” 


512 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


“ No ; I will remain where I am until I hear the 
worst.” 

“ Or come home with me, where thou wilt hear it yet 
sooner. Thou shalt taste a roundhead’s hospitality.” 

“ I scorn thee and thy false friendship,” cried Row- 
land, and turning again into the closet, he bolted the 
door. 

That same morning a great iron ball struck the marble 
horse on his proud head, and flung it in fragments over 
the court. From his neck the water bubbled up bright 
and clear, like the life-blood of the wounded whiteness. 

“Poor Molly!” said the marquis, when he looked 
from his study-window — then smiled at his pity. 

Lord Charles entered : a messenger had come from 
general Fairfax, demanding a surrender in the name of 
the parliament. 

“ If they had but gone on a little longer, Charles, they 
might have saved us the trouble,” said his lordship, “ for 
there would have been nothing left to surrender. — But I 
will consider the proposal,” he added. “ Pray tell sir 
Thomas that whatever I do, I look first to have it ap- 
proved of the king.” 

But there was no longer the shadow of a question as 
to submission. All that was left was but the arrange- 
ment of conditions. The marquis was aware that cap- 
tain Hooper’s trenches were rapidly approaching the 
rampart ; that six great mortars for throwing shells had 
been got into position ; and that resistance would be the 
merest folly. 

Various meetings, therefore, of commissioners appoint- 
ed on both sides for the settling of the terms of submis- 
sion, took place, and at last, on the fifteenth of August, 
they were finally arranged, and the surrender fixed for 
the seventeenth. 

The interval was a sad time. All day long tears were 


DOM US DISSOLVITUR. 


513 


flowing, the ladies doing their best to conceal, the ser- 
vants to display them. Every one was busy gathering 
together what personal effects might be carried away. 
It was especially a sad time for lord Glamorgan’s chil- 
dren, for they were old enough not merely to love the 
place, but to know that they loved it ; and the thought 
that the sacred things of their home were about to pass 
into other hands, roused in them wrath and indignation 
as well as grief, for the sense of property is, in the minds 
of children who have been born and brought up in the 
midst of family possessions, perhaps stronger than in the 
minds of their elders. 

As the sun was going down on the evening of the six- 
teenth, Dorothy, who had been helping now one and 
now another of the ladies all day long, having, indeed, 
little of her own to demand her attention, Dick and 
Marquis being almost her sole valuables, came from the 
keep, and was crossing the fountain court to her old 
room on its western side. Every one was busy indoors, 
and the place appeared deserted. There was a stillness 
in the air that sounded awful. For so many weeks it had 
been shattered with roar upon roar, and now the guns 
had ceased to bellow, leaving a sense of vacancy and 
doubt, an oppression of silence ! The hum that came 
from the lines outside seemed but to enhance the still- 
ness within. But the sunlight lived on sweet and calm, 
as if all was well. It seemed to promise that wrath and 
ruin would pass, and leave no lasting desolation behind 
them. Yet she could not help heaving a great sigh, and 
the tears came streaming down her cheeks. 

“ Tut, tut, cousin ! Wipe thine eyes. The dreary 
old house is not worth such bright tears.” 

Dorothy turned, and saw the marquis seated on the 
edge of the marble basin, under the headless horse, whose 
blood seemed still to well from his truncated form. She 


514 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


saw also that, although his words were cheerful, his lip ! 
quivered. It was some little time before she could 
compose herself sufficiently to speak. 

“ 1 marvel your lordship is so calm,” she said. 

“ Come hither, Dorothy,” he returned kindly, “and sit 
thee down by my side. Thou wast right good to my 
little Molly. Thou hast been a ministering angel to 
Raglan and its people. I did thee wrong, and thou 
forgavest me with a whole heart. Thou hast returned 
me good for evil tenfold, and for all this I love thee ; 
and therefore will I now tell thee what maketh me quiet 
at heart, for I am as thou seest me, and my heart is as 
my countenance. I have lived my life, and have now 
but to die my death. I am thankful to have lived, and 
I hope to live hereafter. Goodness and mercy went 
before my birth, and goodness and mercy will follow my 
death. For the ills of this life, if there was no silence 
there would be no music. Ignorance is a spur to knowl- 
edge. Darkness is a pavilion for the Almighty, a foil 
to the painter to make his shadows. So are afflictions 
good for our instruction, and adversities for our amend' 
ment. As for the article of death, what she who lay in 
my bosom hath passed through, shall I shun to meet it ? 
And look you, fair damsel, thou whose body is sweet, 
and comely to behold — wherefore should I not rejoice 
to depart ? When I see my house lying in ruins about 1 
me, I look down upon this ugly overgrown body of 
mine, the very foundations whereof crumble from 
beneath me, and I thank God it is but a tent, and no 
enduring house even like this house of Raglan, which yet 
will ere long be a dwelling of owls and foxes. Very 
soon will Death pull out the tent-pins and let me fly, and 
therefore am I glad ; for, fair damsel Dorothy, although ) 
it may be hard for thee, beholding me as I am, to com- j 
prehend it, I like to be old and ugly as little as wouldst | 


DOM US DISSOLVITUR. 


515 


thou, and my heart, I verily think, is little older than 
thine own. One day, please God, I shall yet be clothed 
upon with a house that is from heaven, nor shall I hob- 
ble with gouty feet over the golden pavement — if so be 
that my sins overpass not mercy. Pray for me, Dorothy, 
my daughter, for my end is nigh, that I find at length 
the bosom of father Abraham.” 

As he ended, a slow flower of music bloomed out upon 
the silence, from under the fingers of the blind youth hid 
in the stony shell of the chapel, and, doubtful at first, its 
fragrance filled at length the whole sunset air. It was 
the music of a Nunc dimittis of Palestrina. Dorothy 
knelt and kissed the old man’s hand, then rose and went 
weeping to her chamber, leaving him still seated by the 
broken yet flowing fountain. 

Of all who prepared to depart, Caspar Kaltoff was the 
busiest. What best things of his master’s he could carry 
with him, he took, but a multitude he left to a more 
convenient opportunity, in the hope of which, alone and 
unaided, he sunk his precious cabinet, and a chest 
besides, filled with curious inventions and favorite tools, 
in the secret shaft. But the most valued of all, the fire- 
engine, he could not take and would not leave. He 
stopped the fountain of the white horse, once more set 
the water-commanding slave to work, and filled the cis- 
tern until he heard it roar in the waste-pipe. Then he 
extinguished the fire and let the furnace cool, and when 
Dorothy entered the workshop for the last time to take 
her mournful leave of the place, there lay the bones of 
the mighty creature scattered over the floor — here a pipe, 
there a valve,- here a piston and there a cock. Nothing 
stood but the furnace and the great pipes that ran up 
the grooves in the wall outside, between which there was 
scarce a hint of connection to be perceived. 

“ Mistress Dorothy,” he said, “ my master is the great- 


516 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


est man in Christendom, but the world is stupid, and 
will forget him because it never knew him.” 

Amongst her treasures, chief of them all, even before 
the gifts of her husband, lady Glamorgan carried with 
her the last garments, from sleeve-ribbons to dainty little 
shoes and rosettes, worn by her Molly. 

Dr. Bayly carried a bag of papers and sermons, with 
his doctor’s gown and hood, and his best suit of clothes. 

The marquis with his own hand put up his Vulgate, 
and left his Gower behind Ever since the painful 
proofs of its failure with the king, he had felt if not a 
dislike yet a painful repugnance to the volume, and had 
never opened it. 

It was a troubled night, the last they spent in the 
castle. Not many slept. But the lord of it had long 
understood that what could cease to be his never had 
been his, and slept like a child. Dr. Bayly, who in his 
loving anxiety had managed to get hold of his key, crept 
in at midnight, and found him fast asleep, and again in 
the morning, and found him not yet waked. 

When breakfast was over, proclamation was made that 
at nine o’clock there would be prayers in the chapel for 
the last time, and that the marquis desired all to be 
present. When the hour arrived, he entered leaning on 
the arm of Dr. Bayly. Dorothy followed with the ladies 
of the family. Young Delaware was in his place, and 
“with organ voice and voice of psalms,” praise and 
prayer arose for the last time from the house of Raglan. 
All were in tears save the marquis. A smile played 
about his lips, and he looked like a child giving away his 
toy. Sir Toby Mathews tried hard to speak to his flock, 
but broke down, and had to yield the attempt. When 
the services were over, the marquis rose and said, 

“ Master Delaware, once more play thy Nunc dimittis y 
and so meet me every one in the hall.” 


DOMUS DISSOL VITUR. 


51 ? 


Thither the marquis himself walked first, and on the 
dais seated himself in his chair of state, with his family 
and friends around him, and the officers of his household 
waiting. On one side of him stood sir Ralph Black- 
stone, with a bag of gold, and on the other Mr. George 
Wharton, the clerk of the accounts, with a larger bag of 
silver. Then each of the servants, in turn according to 
position, was called before him by name, and with his 
own hand the marquis, dipping now into one bag, now 
into the other, gave to each a small present in view of 
coming necessities : they had the day before received 
their wages. To each he wished a kind farewell, to 
some adding a word of advice or comfort. He then 
handed the bags to the governor, and told him to dis- 
tribute their contents according to his judgment amongst 
the garrison. Last, he ordered every one to be ready 
to follow him from the gates the moment the clock struck 
the hour of noon, and went to his study. 

When lord Charles came to tell him that all were mar- 
shaled, and everything ready for departure, he found 
him kneeling, but he rose with more of agility than he 
had for a long time been able to show, and followed his 
son. 

With slow pace he crossed the courts and the hall, 
which were silent as the grave, bending his steps to the 
main entrance. The portcullises were up, the gates wide 
open, the drawbridge down — all silent and deserted. 
The white stair was also vacant, and in solemn silence 
the marquis descended, leaning on lord Charles. But 
beneath was a gallant show, yet, for all its color and 
shine, mournful enough. At the foot of the stair stood 
four carriages, each with six officers in glittering harness, 
and behind them all the officers of the household and all 
the guests on horseback. Next came the garrison-music 
of drums and trumpets, then the men-servants on foot, 


518 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


and the women, some on foot and some in wagons with 
the children. After them came the wagons loaded with 
such things as they were permitted to carry with them. 
These were followed by the principal officers of the 
garrison, colonels and captains, accompanied by their 
troops, consisting mostly of squires and gentlemen, to 
•the number of about two hundred, on horseback. Last 
came the foot-soldiers of the garrison and those who 
had lost their horses, in all some five hundred, stretch- 
ing far away, round towards the citadel, beyond the 
sight. Colors were flying and weapons glittering, and 
though all was silence except for the pawing of a horse 
here and there, and the ringing of chain-bridles, every- 
thing looked like an ordered march of triumph rather 
than a surrender and evacuation. Still there was a 
something in the silence that seemed to tell the true 
tale. 

In the front carriage were lady Glamorgan and the 
ladies Elizabeth, Anne, and Mary. In the carriages 
behind came their gentlewomen, and their lady visitors, 
with their immediate attendants. Dorothy, mounted on 
Dick, with Marquis’s chain fastened to the pommel of 
her saddle, followed the last carriage. Beside her rode 
young Delaware, and his father, the master of the horse. 

“ Open the white gate,” said the marquis from the 
stair as he descended. 

The great clock of the castle struck, and with the last 
stroke of the twelve came the blast of a trumpet from 
'Below. 

“ Answer, trumpets,” cried the marquis. 

The governor repeated the order, and a tremendous 
blare followed, in which the drums unbidden joined. 

This was the signal to the warders at the brick gate, 
and they flung its two leaves wide apart. 

Another blast from below, and in marched on horse- 


DOM US DISSOLVITUR . 


519 



back general Fairfax with his staff, followed by three 
hundred foot. The latter drew up on each side of the 
brick gate, while the general and his staff went on to the 
marble gate. 

As soon as they appeared within it, the marquis, who 
had halted in the midst of his descent, came down to 
meet them. He bowed to the general, and said, 

“ I would it were as a guest I received you, sir 
Thomas, for then might I honestly bid you welcome. 
But that I cannot do when you so shake my poor nest 
that you shake the birds out of it. But though I cannot 
bid you welcome, I will notwithstanding heartily bid 
you farewell, sir Thomas, and I thank you for your 
courtesy to me and mine. This nut of Raglan was, I 
believe, the last you had to crack. Amen. God’s will 
be done.” 

The general returned civil answer, and the marquis 
again bowing graciously, advanced to the foremost car- 
riage, the door of which was held for him by sir Ralph, 
the steward, while lord Charles stood by to assist his 
father. The moment he had entered, the two gentlemen 
mounted the horses held for them one on each side of 
the carriage, lord Charles gave the word, the trumpets 
once more uttered a loud cry, the marquis’s carriage 
moved, the rest followed, and in slow procession lord 
Worcester and his people, passing through the gates, left 
for ever the house of Raglan, and in his heart Henry 
Somerset bade the world good bye. 

General Fairfax and his company ascended the great 
white stair, crossed the moat on the drawbridge, passed 
under the double portcullis and through the gates, and 
so entered the deserted court. All was frightfully still ; 
the windows stared like dead eyes — the very houses 
seemed dead ; nothing alive was visible except one 
scared cat : the cannonade had driven away all the 




520 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


pigeons, and a tile had killed the patriarch of the pea- 
cocks. They entered the great hall and admired its 
goodly proportions, while not a few expressions of regret 
at the destruction of such a magnificent house escaped 
them ; then as soldiers they proceeded to examine the 
ruins, and distinguish the results wrought by the differ- 
ent batteries. 

“ Gentlemen,” said sir Thomas, “ had the walls been 
as strong as the towers, we should have been still sitting 
in yonder field.” 

In the meantime the army commissioner, Thomas 
Herbert by name, was busy securing with the help of 
his men the papers and valuables, and making an in- 
ventory of such goods as he considered worth removing 
for sale in London. 

Having satisfied his curiosity with a survey of the 
place, and left a guard to receive orders from Mr. Her- 
bert, the general mounted again and rode to Chepstow, 
where there was a grand entertainment that evening to 
celebrate the fall of Raglan, the last of the strongholds 
of the king. 


CHAPTER LV. 


R. I. P, 


S the sad, shining company of the marquis went 



from the gates, running at full speed to overtake the 
rear ere it should have passed through, came Caspar, 
and mounting a horse led for him, rode near Dorothy. 

As they left the brick gate, a horseman joined the 
procession from outside. Pale and worn, with bent head 
and sad face, sir Rowland Scudamore fell into the ranks 
amongst his friends of the garrison, and with them rode 
in silence. 

Many a look did Dorothy cast around her as she rode, 
but only once, on the crest of a grassy hill that rose 
abrupt from the highway a few miles from Raglan, did 
she catch sight of Richard mounted on Lady. All her 
life after, as often as trouble came, that figure rose 
against the sky of her inner world, and was to her a type 
of the sleepless watch of the universe. 

Soon, from flank and rear in this direction and that, 
each to some haven or home, servants and soldiers began 
to drop away. Before they reached the forest of Dean, 
the cortege had greatly dwindled, for many belonged to 
villages, small towns, and farms on the way, and their 
orders had been to go home and wait better times. 
When he reached London, except the chief officers of his 
household, one of his own pages, and some of his 
daughters’ gentlewomen and menials, the marquis had 
few attendants left beyond Caspar and Shafto. 

It was a long and weary journey for him, occupying a 


522 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


whole week. One evening he was so tired and unwell 
that they were forced to put up with what quarters they 
could find in a very poor little town. Early in the 
morning, however, they were up and away. When they 
had gone some ten miles — lord Charles was riding beside 
the coach and chatting with his sisters — a remark was 
made not complimentary to their accommodation of the 
previous night. 

“True,” said lord Charles; “it was a very scurvy inn, 
but we must not forget that the reckoning was cheap.” 

While he spoke, one of the household had approached 
the marquis, who sat on the other side of the carriage, 
and said something in a low voice. 

“Say’st thou so !” returned his lordship. “ — Hear’st 
thou, my lord Charles ? Thou talkest of a cheap reckon- 
ing! I never paid so dear for a lodging in my life. 
Here is master Wharton hath just told me that they have 
left a thousand pound under a bench in the chamber we 
broke our fast in. Truly they are overpaid for what we 
had!” 

“We have sent back after it, my lord,” said Mr. 
Wharton. 

“You will never see the money again,” said lord 
Charles. 

“ Oh, peace !” said the marquis. “ If they will not be 
known of the money, you shall see it a brave inn in a 
short time.” 

Nothing more was said on the matter, and the marquis 
seemed to have forgotten it. Late at night, at their next 
halting place the messenger rejoined them, having met a 
drawer, mounted on a sorry horse, riding after them with 
the bag, but little prospect of overtaking them before 
they reached London. 

“I thought our hostess seemed an honest woman!” 
said lady Anne. 


* 7 - p - 523 

“ It is a poor town, indeed, lord Charles, but you see 
it is an honest one nevertheless !” said Dr. Bayly. 

“It may be the town never saw so much money 
before,” said the marquis, “ and knew not what to make 
of it.” 

“Your lordship is severe,” said the doctor. 

“ Only with my tongue, good doctor, only with my 
tongue,” said the marquis laughing. 

When they reached London, lord Worcester found 
himself, to his surprise, in custody of the Black Rod, 
who, as now for some three years Worcester House in 
the Strand had been used for a state-paper office, con- 
ducted him to a house in Covent Garden, where he 
lodged him in tolerable comfort and mild imprisonment. 
Parliament was still jealous of Glamorgan and his Irish 
doings — as indeed well they might be. 

But his confinement was by no means so great a trial 
to him as his indignant friends supposed ; for, long will- 
ing to depart, he had at length grown a little tired of 
life, feeling more and more the oppression of growing 
years, of gout varied with asthma, and, worst of all to 
the once active man, of his still increasing corpulence, 
which last indeed, by his own confession, he found it 
hard to endure with patience. The journey had been 
too much for him, and he began to lead the life of an 
invalid. • 

There being no sufficient accomodation in the house 
for his family, they were forced to content themselves 
with lodging as near him as they could, and in these 
circumstances Dorothy, notwithstanding lady Glamor- 
gan’s entreaties, would have returned home. But the 
marquis was very unwilling she should leave him, and 
for his sake she concluded to remain. 

“ I am not long for this world, Dorothy,” he said. 
“ Stay with me and see the last of the old man. The 


524 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


wind of death has got inside my tent, and will soon blow 
it out of sight.” 

Lady Glamorgan’s intention from the first had been 
to go to Ireland to her husband as soon as she could get 
leave. This however she did not obtain until the first 
of October — five weeks after her arrival in London. She 
would gladly have carried Dorothy with her, but she 
would not leave the marquis, who was now failing 
visibly. As her ladyship’s pass included thirty of her 
servants, Dorothy felt at ease about her personal com- 
forts, and her husband would soon supply all else. 

The ladies Elizabeth and Mary were in the same house 
with their father ; lady Anne and lord Charles were in 
the house of a relative at no great distance, and visited 
him every day. Sir Toby Mathews also, and Dr. Bayly, 
had found shelter in the neighborhood, so that his lord- 
ship never lacked company. But he was going to have 
other company soon. 

Gently he sank towards the grave, and as he sank his 
soul seemed to retire farther within, vanishing on the 
way to the deeper life. They thought he lost interest in 
life : it was but that the brightness drew him from the 
glimmer. Every now and then, however, he would come 
forth from his inner chamber, and standing in his open 
door look out upon his friends, and tell them what he 
had seen. * 

The winter drew on. But first November came, with 
its “saint Martin’s summer, halcyon days,” and the old 
man revived a little. He stood one morning and looked 
from his window on the garden behind the house, all 
glittering with molten hoar-frost. A few leaves, golden 
with death, hung here and there on a naked bough. A 
kind of sigh was in the air. The very light had in it as 
much of resignation as hope. He had forgotten that 
Dorothy was in the room. 


R. I. P. 


525 


There was Celtic blood in the marquis, and at times 
his thoughts took shapes that hardly belonged to the 
Teuton. 

“ Cometh my youth hither again?” he murmured. 
“ As a stranger he cometh whom yet I know so well ! 
Or is it but the face of my old age lighted with a parting 
smile ? Either way, change cometh, and change will be 
good. Domine , in manus tuas .” 

He turned and saw Dorothy. 

“ Child !” he exclaimed. “ Good sooth, I had forgot- 
ten thee. Yet spake I no treason. Dorothy, I hold not 
with them who say that from dust we came and to dust 
we return. Neither my blessed countess, whom thou 
knewest not, nor my darling Molly, whom thou knewest 
so well, were born of the dust. From some better where 
they came— for. say, can dust beget love ? Whither 
they have gone, I follow, in the hope that their prayers 
have smoothed for me the way. Lord, lay not my sins 
to my charge. Mary, mother, hear my wife who prayeth 
for me. Hear my little Molly : she was ever dainty and 
good.” 

Again he had forgotten Dorothy, and was with his 
dead. 

But St. Martin’s summer is only the lightening of the 
year that comes before its death, and November, al- 
though it brought not then such evil fogs as it now 
afflicts London withal, yet brought with it November 
weather — one of God’s hounds, with which he hunts us 
out of the hollows of our own moods, and teaches us to 
sit on the arch of the cellar. But though the marquis 
foilght hard and kept it out of his mind, it got into his 
troubled body. The gout left his feet ; he coughed 
distressingly, breathed with difficulty, and at length be- 
took himself to bed. 

For some time his interest in politics, save in so much 


526 ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 

as affected the king’s person, had been gradually ceas- 
ing— 

“ I trust I have done my part,” he said once to the 
two clergymen, as they sat by his bedside. “Yet I know 
not. I fear me I clove too fast to my money. Yet 
would I have parted with all, even to my shirt, to make 
my lord the king a good catholic. But it may be, sir 
Toby, we make more of such matters down here than 
they do in the high countries, and in that case, good 
doctor, ye are to blame who broke away from your 
mother, even were she not perfect.” 

He crossed himself and murmured a prayer, in fear 
lest he had been guilty of laxity of judgment. But 
neither clergyman said a word. 

“ But tell me, gentlemen, ye who understand sacred 
things,” he resumed, “ can a man be far out of the way 
so long as, with full heart and no withholding, he saith, 
Fiat voluntas tua — and that after no private interpreta- 
tion, but Sicut in codo ? ” 

“ That, my lord, I also strive to say, with all my 
heart,” said Dr. Bayly. 

“ Mayhap, doctor,” returned the marquis, “ when thou 
art as old as I, and hast learned to see how good it is, 
how all-good, thou wilt be able to say it without any 
striving. There was a time in my life when I too had to 
strive, for the thought that he was a hard master would 
come, and come again. But now that I have learned a 
little more of what he meaneth with me, what he would 
have of me, and do for me, how he would make me pure 
of sin, clean from the very bottom of my heart to ^the 
crest of my soul, from spur to plume a stainless knight, 
verily I am no more content to submit to his will : I cry 
in the night time, ‘ Thy will be done : Lord, let it be 
done, I entreat thee and in the daytime I cry, 1 Thy 
kingdom come : Lord, let it come, I pray thee.’ ” 


R. I. P. 


527 


He lay silent. The clergymen left the room, and lord 
Charles came in, and sat down by his bedside. The 
marquis looked at him, and said kindly, 

“ Ah, son Charles ! art thou there ?” 

“ I came to tell you, my lord, the rumor goeth that the 
king hath consented to establish the presbyterian heresy 
in the land,” said lord Charles. 

“ Believe it not, my lord. A man ought not to believe 
ill of another so long as there is space enough for a 
doubt to perch. Yet, alas ! what shall be hoped of him 
who will yield nothing to prayers, and everything to 
compulsion? Had his majesty been a true prince, he 
had ere now set his foot on the neck of his enemies, or 
else ascended to heaven a blessed martyr. 1 Protestant,’ * 
say’st thou ? In good sooth, I force not. What is he 
now but a football for the sectaries to kick to and fro ! 
But I shall pray for him whither I go, if indeed the 
prayers of such as I may be heard in that country. God 
be with his majesty. I can no more. There are other 
realms than England, and I go to another king. Yet 
will I pray for England, for she is dear to my heart. 
God grant the evil time may pass, and Englishmen yet 
again grow humble and obedient !” 

He closed his eyes, and his face grew so still that, 
notwithstanding the labor of his breathing, he would 
have seemed asleep, but that his lips moved a little now 
and then, giving a flutter of shape to the eternal prayer 
within him. 

Again he opened his eyes, and saw sir Toby, who had 
re-entered silent as a ghost, and said, feebly holding out 
his hand, 

“I am dying, sir Toby: where will this swollen hulk 
of mine be hid?” 

“That, my lord,” returned sir Toby, “hath been 
already spoken of in parliament, and it hath been wrung 


528 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


from them, heretics and fanatics as they are, that your 
lordship’s mortal remains shall lie in Windsor castle, by 
the side of earl William, the first of the earls of Worces- 
ter.” 

“God bless us all!” cried the marquis, almost merrily, 
for he was pleased, and with the pleasure the old humor 
came back for a moment : “ they will give me a better 
castle when I am dead than they took from me when I 
was alive !” 

“ Yet it is a small matter to him who inherits such a 
house as awaiteth my lord — domum non manufactam , in 
ccelis ceternam ,” said sir Toby. 

“ I thank thee, sir Toby, for recalling me. Truly for 
a moment I was uplifted somewhat. That I should still 
play the fool, and the old fool, in the very face of Death ! 
But, thank God, at thy word the world hath again 
dwindled, and my heavenly house drawn the nearer. 
Domine , nunc dimittis . — Let me, so soon as you judge 
fit, sir Toby, have the consolations of the dying.” 

When the last rites, wherein the church yields all hold 
save that of prayer, had been administered, and his 
daughters with Dorothy and lord Charles stood around 
his bed, 

“Now have I taken my staff to be gone,” he said 
cheerfully, “ like a peasant who hath visited his friends, 
and will now return, and tfrey will see him as far upon 
the road as they may. I tremble a little, but I bethink 
me of him that made me and died for me, and now call- 
eth me, and my heart revives within me.” 

Then he seemed to fall half asleep, and his soul went 
wandering in dreams that were not all of sleep — just as 
it had been with little Molly when her end drew near. 

“How sweet is the grass for me to lie in, and for 
thee to eat! Eat, eat, old Plowman.” 

It was a favorite horse of which he dreamed — one 


R. /. P. 


529 


which in old days he had named after Piers Plowman, 
the Vision concerning whom, notwithstanding its severity 
on catholic abuses, he had at one time read much. 

After a pause he went on — x 

“ Alack, they have shot off his head ! What shall I do 
without my Plowman — my body groweth so large and 
heavy ! — Hark, I hear Molly ! ‘ Spout, horse,’ she crieth. 
See, it is his life-blood he spouteth ! — O Lord, what 
shall I do, for I am heavy, and my body keepeth down 
my soul. — Hark ! Who calleth me ? It is Molly ! No, 
no ! it is the Master. — Lord, I cannot rise and come to 
thee. Here have I lain for ages, and my spirit groaneth. 
Reach forth thy hand, Lord, and raise me. Thanks, 
Lord, thanks!” 

And with the word he was neither old man nor mar- 
quis any more. 

The parliament, with wondrous liberality, voted five 
hundred pounds for his funeral, and Dr. Bayly tells us 
that he laid him in his grave with his own hands. But 
let us trust rather that Anne and Molly received him 
into their arms, and soon made him forget all about cas- 
tles and chapels and dukedoms and ungrateful princes, 
in the everlasting youth of the heavenly kingdom, whose 
life is the presence of the Father, whose air to breathe is 
love, and whose corn and wine are truth and gracious- 
ness. 

There surely, and nowhere else as surely, can the 
prayer be for a man fulfilled : Requiescat in pace . 

x 


CHAPTER LVI. 


RICHARD AND CASPAR. 

I HAVE now to recount a small adventure to which it 
would scarcely be worth while to afford a place, were 
it not for the important fact that it opened to Richard a 
great window not only into Dorothy’s history while she 
lived at the castle, but, which was of far more impor- 
tance, into the character molding that history — for char- 
acter has far more to do with determining kistory than 
history has to do with determining character. Without 
the interview whose circumstances I am about to narrate, 
Richard could not so soon at least have done justice to 
a character which had been, if not keeping parallel pace 
with his own, yet advancing rapidly in the same direc- 
tion. 

The decree of the parliament had gone forth that 
Raglan should be destroyed. The same hour in which 
the sad news reached Caspar, he set out to secure, if 
possible, the treasures he had concealed. He had little 
fear of their being discovered, but great fear of their 
being rendered inaccessible from the workshop. 

Having reached the neighborhood, he hired a horse 
and cart from a small farmer whom he knew, and, taking 
the precaution to put on the dress of a countryman, got 
on it and drove to the castle. The huge oaken leaves of 
the brick gate, bound and riveted with iron, lay torn 
from their hinges, and he entered unquestioned. But 
instead of the solitude of desertion, for which he had 
hoped, he found the whole place swarming with country 
people, men and women, most of them with baskets and 


RICHARD AND CASPAR. 


531 


sacks, while the space between the outer defenses and 
the moat of the castle itself was filled with country 
vehicles of every description, from a wheelbarrow to a 
great wagon. 

When the most valuable of the effects found in the 
place had been carried to London, a sale for the large 
remainder had been held on the spot, at which not a few 
of the neighboring families had been purchasers. After 
all, however, a great many things were left unbid for, 
which were not, from a money point of view — the sole 
one taken — worth removing; and now the peasantry 
were, like jackals, admitted to pick the bones of the 
h.uge carcase, ere the skeleton itself should be torn 
asunder. Nor could the invading populace have been 
disappointed of their expectations : they found number- 
less things of immense value in their eyes, and great use 
in their meager economy. For years, I might say centu- 
ries after, pieces of furniture and panels of carved oak, 
bits of tapestry, antique sconces and candlesticks of 
brass, ancient horse-furniture, and a thousand things 
besides of endless interest, were to be found scattered in 
farm-houses and cottages all over Monmouth and neigh- 
boring shires. I should not wonder if, even now in the 
third century, and after the rage for the collection of 
such things has so long prevailed, there were some of 
them still to be discovered in places where no one has 
thought of looking. 

When Caspar saw what was going on, he judged it 
prudent to turn and drive his cart into the quarry, and 
having there secured it, went back and entered the 
castle. There was a great divided torrent of humanity 
rushing and lingering through the various lines of rooms, 
here meeting in whirlpools, there parted into mere rivu- 
lets — man and woman searching for whatever might look 
valuable in his or her eyes. Things that nowadays 


53a ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 

would fetch their weight in silver, some of them even in 
gold, were passed by as worthless, or popped into a bag 
to be carried home for the amusement of cottage chil- 
dren. The noises of hobnailed shoes on the oak-floors, 
and of unrestrained clownish and churlish voices every- 
where, were tremendous. Here a fat cottager might be 
seen standing on a lovely quilt of patchwork brocade, 
pulling down, rough in her cupidity, curtains on which 
the new-born and dying eyes of generations of nobles 
had rested, henceforth to adorn a miserable cottage, 
while her husband was taking down the bed, larger, per- 
haps, than the room itself in which they would in vain 
try to set it up, or cruelly forcing a lid, which, having a 
spring lock, had closed again after the carved chest had 
been already rifled by the commissioner or his men. 
The kitchen was full of squabbling women, and the whole 
place in the agonies of dissolution. But there was a 
small group of persons, fortuitously met, but linked to- 
gether by an old painful memory of the place itself, 
strongly revived by their present meeting, in whom a 
fanatical hatred of everything catholic, coupled with a 
profound sense of personal injury, had prevailed over 
avarice, causing them to leave the part of acquisition to 
their wives, and aspire to that of pure destruction. It 
was the same company, almost to a man, whose misad- 
ventures in their search of Raglan for arms, under the 
misguidance of Tom Fool, I have related in an early 
chapter. In their hearts they nursed a half-persuasion 
that Raglan had fallen because of their wrongs within 
its walls, and the shame that there had been heaped 
upon the godly. 

These men, happening to meet, as I say, in the midst 
of the surrounding tumult, had fallen into a conversation 
chiefly occupied with reminiscences of that awful experi- 
ence, whose terrors now looked but like an evil dream. 


RICHARD AND CASPAR. 


533 


and, in a place thus crowded with men and women, 
buzzing with voices, and resounding with feet, as little 
likely to return as a vanished thunder-cloud. In the 
course of their conversation, therefore, they grew valiant, 
grew conscious next of a high calling, and resolved 
therewith to take to themselves the honor of giving the 
first sweep of the besom of destruction to Raglan castle. 
Satisfying themselves first therefore that their wives were 
doing their duty for their household, — mistress Upstill 
was as good as two men at least at appropriation, — they 
set out, Cast-down taking the lead, master Sycamore, 
John Croning, and the rest following, armed with crow- 
bars, for the top of the great tower, ambitious to com- 
mence the overthrow by attacking the very summit, the 
high places of wickedness, the crown of pride, and after 
some devious wandering, at length found the way to the 
stair. 

When Caspar Kaltoff entered the castle, he made 
straight for the keep, and to his delight found no one 
in the lower part. To make certain however that he 
was alone in the place ere he secured himself from in- 
trusion, he ran up the stair, gave a glance at the doors 
as he ran, and reached the top just as Upstill in fierce 
discrowning pride was heaving the first capstone from 
between two battlements. Caspar was close by the 
cocks; instantly he turned one, and as the dislodged 
stone struck the water of the moat, a sudden hollow 
roaring invaded their ears, and while they stood aghast 
at the well-remembered sound, and ere yet the marrow 
had time to freeze in their stupid bones, the very moat 
itself into which they had cast the insulted stone, storm- 
ing and spouting, seemed to come rushing up to avenge 
it upon them where they stood. The moment he turned 
the cock, Gaspar shot halfway down the stair, but as 
quietly as he could, and into a little chamber in the wall, 


534 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


where stood two great vessels through which the pipes 
of the fire-engine inside had communicated with the 
pipes in the wall outside. There he waited until the 
steps which, long before he reached his refuge, he heard 
come thundering down the stairs after him, had passed 
in headlong haste, when he sprang up again to save the 
water for another end, and to attach the drawbridge to 
the sluice, so that it would raise it to its full height. 
Then he hurried down to the water trap under the 
bridge and set it, after which he could hardly help 
wasting a little of his precious-time, lurking in a con- 
venient corner to watch the result. 

He had not to wait long. The shrieks of the yokels 
as they ran, and their looks of horror when they 
appeared, quickly gathered around them a gaping crowd 
to hear their tale, the more foolhardy in which, partly 
doubting their word, for the fountains no longer played, 
and partly ambitious of showing their superior courage, 
rushed to the Gothic bridge. Down came the draw- 
bridge with a clang, and with it in sheer descent a 
torrent of water fit to sweep a regiment away, which 
shot along the stone bridge and dashed them from it 
bruised and bleeding, and half drowned with the water 
which in their terror and surprise found easy way into 
their bodies. Caspar withdrew satisfied, for he now 
felt sure of all the time he required to get some other 
things he had thought of saving down into the shaft 
with the cabinet and chest. 

Having effected this, and with much labor and diffi- 
culty, aided by rollers, got all into the quarry and then 
into the cart, he did not resist the temptation to go again 
amongst the crowd, and enjoy listening to the various 
remarks and conjectures and terrors to which doubtless 
his trick had given rise. He therefore got a great armful 
of trampled corn from the field above, and laid it before 


RICHARD AND CASPAR. 535 

his patient horse, then ran round and re-entered the 
castle by the main gate. 

He had not been in the crowd many minutes, how- 
ever, when he saw indications of suspicion — ripening to 
conviction. What had given ground for it he could not 
tell, but at some point he must have been seen on the 
other side of the tower-moat. All this time Upstill and 
his party had been recounting with various embellish- 
ment their adventures both former and latter, and when 
Kaltoff was recognized or at least suspected in the 
crowd, the rumor presently arose and spread that he was 
either the devil himself, or an accredited agent of that 
potenate. 

“Be it then the old Satan himself?” Caspar heard a 
man say anxiously to his neighbor, as he tried to get a 
look at his feet, which was not easy in such a press. 
Caspar, highly amused, and thinking such evil reputation 
would rather protect than injure him, showed some 
anxiety about his feet, and made as if he would fain keep 
them out of the field of observation. But thereupon he 
saw the faces and gestures of the younger men begin to 
grow threatening; evidently anger was succeeding to 
fear, and some of them, fired with the ambition possibly 
of thrashing the devil, ventured to give him a rough 
shove or two from behind. Neither outbreak of sulphur- 
ous flashes nor even kick of cloven hoof following, they 
proceeded with the game, and rapidly advanced to such 
extremities, expostulation in Caspar’s broken English, 
for such in excitement it always became, seeming only 
to act as fresh incitement and justification, that at length 
he was compelled in self-defense to draw a dagger. 
This checked them a little, and ere audacity had had 
time to recover itself, a young man came shoving through 
the crowd, pushing them all right and left until he 
reached Caspar, and stood b y his side. Now there was 


536 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


that about Richard Heywood to give him influence with 
a crowd: he was a strong man and a gentleman, and 
they drew back. 

“ De fools dink I was de tuyfel !” said Caspar. 

Richard turned upon them with indignation. 

“You Englishmen !” he cried, “ and treat a foreigner 
thus!” 

But there was nothing about him to show that he was 
a roundhead, and from behind rose the cry : “ A malig- 
nant ! A royalist!” and the fellows near began again to 
advance threateningly. 

“ Mr. Heywood,” said Caspar hurriedly, for he recog- 
nized his helper from the time he had seen him a pris- 
oner, “ let us make for the hall. I know the place, and 
can bring us both off safe.” 

It was one of Richard’s greatest virtues that he could 
place much confidence. He gave one glance at his com- 
panion, and said, “ I will do as thou sayest.” 

“ Follow me then, sir,” said Caspar, and turning with 
brandished dagger, he forced his way to the hall-door, 
Richard following with fists, his sole weapons, defending 
their rear. 

There were but few in the hall, and although their 
enemies came raging after them, they were impeded by 
the crowd, so that there was time as they crossed it for 
Caspar to say : 

“ Follow me over the bridge, but for God’s sake, put 
your feet exactly where I put mine as we cross. You 
will see why in a moment after.” 

“ I will,” said Richard, and, delayed a little by need- 
ful care, gained the other side just as the foremost of 
their pursuers rushed on the bridge, and with a clang 
and a roar were swept from it by the descending torrent. 

They lost no time in explanations. Caspar hurried 
Richard to the workshop, down the shaft, through the 


RICHARD AND CASPAR. 


537 


passage, and into the quarry, whence, taking no notice 
of his cart, he went with him to the White Horse, where 
Lady was waiting him. 

And Richard was well rewarded for the kindness he 
had shown, for ere they said good-bye, the German, 
whose heart was full of Dorothy, and understood, as 
indeed every one in the castle did, something of her 
relation to Richard, had told him all he knew about her 
life in the castle, and how she had been both before and 
during the siege a guardian angel, as the marquis himself 
had said, to Raglan. Nor was the story of her attempted 
visit to her old playfellow in the turret chamber, or the 
sufferings she had to endure in consequence, forgotten ; 
and when Caspar and he parted, Richard rode home 
with fresh strength and light and love in his heart, and 
Lady shared in them all somehow, for she constantly 
reflected, or imaged rather, the moods of her master. 
As much as ever he believed Dorothy mistaken, and yet 
could have kneeled in reverence before her. He had 
himself tried to do the truth, and no one but he who 
tries to do the truth can perceive the grandeur of an- 
other who does the same. Alive to his own shortcom- 
ings, such a one the better understands the success of 
his brother or sister : there the truth takes to him shape, 
and he worships at her shrine. He saw more clearly 
than before what he had been learning ever since she had 
renounced him, that it is not correctness of opinion — 
could he be sure that his own opinions were correct ? — 
that constitutes rightness, but that condition of soul 
which, as a matter of course, causes it to move along the 
lines of truth and duty — the life going forth in motion 
according to the law of light : this alone places a nature 
in harmony with the central Truth. It was in the doing 
of the will of his Father that Jesus was the son of God — 
yea the eternal son of the eternal Father. 


538 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


Nor was this to make little of the truth intellectually 
considered — of the fact of things. The greatest fact of 
all is that we are bound to obey the truth, and that to 
the full extent of our knowledge thereof, however little 
that may be. This obligation acknowledged and obeyed ' 
the road is open to all truth — and the only road. The 
way to know is to do the known. 

Then why, thought Richard with himself, should he 
and Dorothy be parted ? Why should Dorothy imagine 
they should? All depended on their common magna- 
nimity, not the magnanimity that pardons faults, but the 
magnanimity that recognizes virtues. He who gladly 
kneels with one who thinks largely wide from himself, in 
so doing draws nearer to the Father of both than he who 
pours forth his soul in sympathetic torrent only in the 
company of those who think like himself. If a man be 
of the truth, then and only then is he of those who 
gather with the Lord. 

In forms natural to the age and his individual thought, 
if not altogether in such as I have here put down, Rich- 
ard thus fashioned his insights as he sauntered home 
upon Lady, his head above the clouds, and his heart 
higher than his head — as it ought to be once or twice a 
day at least. Poor indeed is any worldly success com- 
pared to a moment’s breathing in divine air, above the 
region where the miserable word success yet carries a 
meaning. 


CHAPTER LVII. 


THE SKELETON. 

T HE death of the marquis took place in December, 
long before which time the second marquis of 
Worcester, ever busy in the king’s affairs, and unable to 
show himself with safety in England, or there be useful, 
had gone from Ireland to Paris. 

As the country was now a good deal quieter, and there 
was nothing to detain her in London, and much to draw 
her to Wyfern, Dorothy resolved to go home, and there, 
if possible, remain. Indeed, there was now nothing else 
she could well do, except visit Mr. Herbert at Llangat- 
tock. But, much as she revered and loved the old man, 
and would have enjoyed his company, she felt now such 
a longing for activity that she must go and look after 
her affairs. What with the words of the good marquis 
and her own late experiences and conflicts, Dorothy had 
gained much enlightenment. She had learned that well- 
being is a condition of inward calm, resting upon yet 
deeper harmonies of being, and resulting in serene activ- 
ity, the prevention of which natural result reacts in 
perturbation and confusion of thought and feeling. But 
for many sakes the thought of home was in itself precious 
and enticing to her. It was full of clear memories of 
her mother, and vague memories of her father, not to 
mention memories of the childhood Richard and she had 
spent together, from which the late mists had begun to 
rise, and reveal them sparkling with dew and sunshine. 
As soon, therefore, as marquis Henry had gone to count- 
ess Anne, Dorothy took her leave, with many kind words 


540 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


between, of the ladies Elizabeth, Anne, and Mary, and 
set out, attended by her old bailiff and some of the men 
of her small tenantry, who having fought the king’s 
battle in vain, had gone home again to fight their own. 

At Wyfern she found everything in rigid order, almost 
cataleptic repose. How was it ever to be home again ? 
What new thing could restore the homefulness where the 
revered over-life had vanished ? — And how shall the 
world be warmed and brightened to him who knows no 
greater or better man than himself therein — no more 
skillful workman, no diviner thinker, no more godlike 
doer than himself ? And what can the universe have in 
it of home, of country, nay even of world, to him who 
cannot believe in a soul of souls, a heart of hearts ? I 
should fall out with the very beating of the heart within 
my bosom, did I not believe it the pulse of the infinite 
heart, for how else should it be heart of mine ? I made 
it not, and any moment it may seem to fail me, yet never, 
if it be what I think it, can it betray me. — It is no won- 
der then, that, with only memories of what had been to 
render it lovely in her eyes, Dorothy should have soon 
begun to feel the place lonely. 

The very next morning after her rather late arrival, 
she sent to saddle Dick once more, called Marquis, and 
with no other attendant set out to see what they had 
done to dear old Raglan. Marquis had been chained 
up almost all the time they were in London, and freedom 
is blessed even to a dog : Dick was ever joyful under his 
mistress, and now was merry with the keen invigorating 
air of a frosty December morning, and frolicsome amidst 
the early snow, which lay unusually thick on the ground, 
notwithstanding his hundred and twenty miles’ ride, for 
they had taken nearly a week to do it ; so that between 
them they soon raised Dorothy’s spirits also, and she 
turned to her hopes, and grew cheerful. 


THE SKELETON . 


541 


This mood made her the less prepared to encounter 
the change that awaited her. What a change it was ! 
While she approached, what with the trees left, and the 
towers, the rampart, and the outer shell of the courts — 
little injured to the distant eye, she had not an idea of 
the devastation within. But when she rode through one 
entrance after another with the gates torn from their 
hinges, crossed the moat by a mound of earth instead of 
the drawbridge, and rode through the open gateway, 
where the portcullises were wedged up in their grooves 
and their chains gone, into the paved court, she beheld 
a desolation at sight of which her heart seemed to stand 
still in her bosom. The rugged horror of the heaps of 
ruins was indeed softly covered with snow, but what this 
took from the desolation in harshness, it added in cold- 
ness and desertion and hopelessness. She felt like one 
who looks for the corpse of his friend, and finds but his 
skeleton. 

The broken bones of the house projected gaunt and 
ragged. Its eyes returned no shine — they did not even 
stare, for not a pane of glass was left in a window : they 
were but eye-holes, black and blank with shadow and 
no-ness. The roofs were gone— all but that of the great 
hall, which they had not dared to touch. She climbed 
the grand staircase, open to the wind and slippery with 
ice, and reached her own room. Snow lay on the floor, 
which had swollen and burst upwards with November 
rains. Through room after room she wandered with a 
sense of loneliness and desolation and desertion such as 
never before had she known even in her worst dreams. 

Yet was there, to her, in the midst of her sorrow and 
loss, a strange fascination in the scene. Such a hive of 
burning human life now cold and silent ! Even Marquis 
appeared aware of the change, for with tucked-in tail he 
went about sadly sniffing, and gazing up and down. 


542 ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 

Once indeed, and only once, he turned his face to the 
heavens, and gave a strange protesting howl, which made 
Dorothy weep, and a little relieved her oppressed heart. 

She would go and see the workshop. On the way, 
she would first visit the turret chamber. But so strangely 
had destruction altered the look of what it had spared, 
that it was with difficulty she recognized the doors and 
ways of the house she had once known so well. Here 
was a great hole to the shining snow, where once had 
been a dark corner ; there a heap of stones where once 
had been a carpeted corridor. All the human look of 
indwelling had passed away. Where she had been used 
to go about as if by instinct, she had now to fall back 
upon memory, and call up again, with an effort sometimes 
painful in its difficulty, that which had vanished alto- 
gether except from the minds of its scattered household. 

She found the door of the turret chamber, but that 
was all she found. The chamber was gone. Nothing 
was there but the blank gap in the wall, and beyond it, 
far down, the nearly empty moat of the tower. She 
turned, frightened and sick at heart, and made her way 
to the bridge. That still stood, but the drawbridge 
above was gone. She crossed the moat and entered the 
workshop. A single glance took in all that was left of 
the keep. Not a floor was between her and the sky ! 
The reservoir, great as a little mountain-tarn, had van- 
ished utterly ! All was cleared out ; and the white 
wintry clouds were sailing over her head. Nearly a 
third part of the walls had been brought within a few 
feet of the ground. The furnace was gone — all but its 
mason-work. It was like the change of centuries rather 
than months. The castle had half-melted away. Its 
idea was blotted out, save from the human spirit. She 
turned from the workshop, in positive pain of body at 
the sight, and wandered she hardly knew whither, till 


THE SKELETON. 


543 


she found herself in lady Glamorgan’s parlor. There 
was left a single broken chair : she sat down on it, closed 
her eyes, and laid back her head. 

She opened them with a slight start: there stood 
Richard a yard or two away. 

He had heard of her return, and gone at once to 
Wyfern. There learning whither she had betaken her- 
self, he had followed, and tracking what of her footsteps 
he could discover, had at length found her. 


CHAPTER L VIII. 


LOVE AND NO LEASING. 

T HEIR eyes met in the flashes of a double sunrise. 
Their hands .met, but the hand of each grasped the 
’ heart of the other. Two honester purer souls never 
looked out of their windows with meeting gaze. Had 
there been no bodies to divide them, they would have 
mingled in a rapture of faith and high content. 

The desolation was gone; the desert bloomed and 
blossomed as the rose. To Dorothy it was for a moment 
as if Raglan were rebuilt ; the ruin and the winter had 
vanished before the creative therefore prophetic throb 
of the heart of love ; then her eyes fell, not defeated by 
those of the youth, for Dorothy’s faith gave her a bold- 
ness that was lovely even against the foil of maidenly 
reserve, but beaten down by conscience ; the words of 
the marquis shot like an arrow into her memory : “ Love 
outlives all but leasing,” and her eyes fell before Rich- 
ard’s. 

But Richard imagined that something in his look had 
displeased her, and was ashamed, for he had ever been, 
and ever would be, sensitive as a child to rebuke. Even 
when it was mistaken or unjust he would always find 
within him some ground whereon it might have alighted. 

“Forgive me, Dorothy,” he said, supposing she had 
found his look presumptuous. 

“ Nay, Richard,” returned Dorothy, with her eyes fast 
on the ground, whence it seemed rosy mists came rising 
through her, “ I know no cause wherefore thou shouldst 
ask me to forgive thee, but I do know, although thou 


LOVE AND NO LEASING. 


545 


knowest not, good cause wherefore I should ask thee to 
forgive me. Richard, I will tell thee the truth, and thou 
wilt tell me again how I might have shunned doing 
amiss and how far my lie was an evil thing.” 

“ Lie, Dorothy ! Thou hast never lied !” 

“ Hear me, Richard, first, and then judge. Thou 
rememberest I did tell thee that night as we talked in the 
field, that I had about me no missives : the word was 
true, but its purport was false. When I said that, thou 
didst hold in thy hand my comb wherein were concealed 
certain papers in cipher.” 

“ O thou cunning one !” cried Richard, half re- 
proachfully, half humorously, but the amusement over- 
topped the seriousness. 

“ My heart did reproach me, but, Richard, what was I 
to do ?” 

“Wherefore did thy heart reproach thee, Dorothy?” 

“ That I told a falsehood — that I told thee a false- 
hood, Richard.” 

“Then had it been Upstill, thou would ’st not have 
minded ?” 

“ Upstill ! I would never have told Upstill a false- 
hood. I would have beaten him first.” 

“ Then thou didst think it better to tell a falsehood to 
me than to Upstill ?” 

“I would rather sin against thee, an’ it were a sin, 
Richard. Were it wrong to think I would rather be in 
thy hands, sin or none, or sin and all, than in those of a 
mean-spirited knave whom I despised ? Besides I might 
one day, somehow or other, make it up to thee — but I 
could not to him. But was it sin, Richard ? — tell me that. 
I have thought and thought over the matter until my 
mind is mazed. Thou seest it was my lord marquis’s busi- 
ness, not mine, and thou hadst no right in the matter.” 

“Prithee, Dorothy, ask not me to judge.” 


546 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


“Art thou then so angry with me that thou will not 
help me to judge myself aright?” 

“Not so, Dorothy, but there is one command in the 
New Testament for the which I am often more thankful 
than for any other.” 

“ What is that, Richard ?” 

“Judge not. — Prithee, between whom lieth the quarrel, 
Dorothy? Bethink thee.” 

“ Between thee and me, Richard.” 

“No, verily, Dorothy. I accuse thee not.” 

Dorothy was silent for a moment, thinking. 

“I see, Richard,” she said. “It lieth between me 
and my own conscience.” 

“ Then who am I, Dorothy, that I should dare step 
betwixt thee and thy conscience ? God forbid. That 
were a presumption deserving indeed the pains of hell.” 

“ But if my conscience and I seek a daysman betwixt 
us?” 

“Mortal man can never be that daysman, Dorothy. 
Nay, an’ thou need an umpire, thou must seek to him 
who brought thee and thy conscience together and told 
you to agree. Let God, over all and in all, tell thee 
whether or no thou wert wrong. For me, I dare not. 
Believe me, Dorothy, it is sheer presumption for one 
man to intermeddle with the things that belong to the 
spirit of another man.” 

“But these are only the things of a woman,” said 
Dorothy, in pure childish humility born of love. 

“ Sure, Dorothy, thou wouldst not jest in such sober 
matters.” 

“ God forbid, Richard ! I but spoke that which was 
in me. I see now it was foolishness.” 

“All a man can do in this matter of judgment,” said 
Richard, “ is to lead his fellowman, if so be he can, up 
to the judgment of God. He must never dare judge 


LOVE AND NO LEASING. 


547 


him for himself. An’ thou cannot tell whether thou did 
well or ill in what thou didst, thou shouldst not vex thy 
soul. God is thy refuge — even from the wrongs of thine 
own judgment. Pray to him to let thee know the truth, 
that if needful thou mayest repent. Be patient and not 
sorrowful until he show thee. Nor fear that he will 
judge thee harshly because he must judge thee truly. 
That were to wrong God. Trust in him even when thou 
fearest wrong in thyself, for he will deliver thee there- 
from.” 

“Ah! how good and kind art thou, Richard!” 

“ How should I be other to thee, beloved Dorothy?” 

“Thou art not then angry with me that I did deceive 
thee ?” 

“ If thou didst right, wherefore should I be angry ? If 
thou didst wrong, I am well content to know that thou 
wilt be sorry therefor as soon as thou seest it, and 
before that thou canst not, thou must not, be sorry. I 
am sure that what thou knowest to be right that thou 
will do, and it seemeth as if God himself were content 
with that for the time. What the very right thing is, 
concerning which we may now differ, we must come to 
see together one day — the same, and not another, to 
both, and this doing of what we see, is to each of us the 
path thither. Let God judge us, Dorothy, for his judg- 
ment is light in the inward parts, showing the truth and 
enabling us to judge ourselves. For me to judge thee 
and thee me, Dorothy, would with it bear no light. 
Why, Dorothy, knowest thou not — yet how shouldst thou 
know ? — that this is the very matter for the which we, 
my father and his party, contend — that each man, name- 
ly, in matters of conscience, shall be left to his God, and 
remain unjudged of his brother ? And if I fight for this 
on mine own part, unto whom should I accord it if not 
to thee, Dorothy, who art the highest in soul and purest 


548 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


in mind and bravest in heart of all women I have known ? 
Therefore I love thee with all the power of a heart that 
loves that which is true before that which is beautiful, and 
that which is honest before that which is of good report.” 

What followed I leave to the imagination of such of 
my readers as are capable of understanding that the 
truer the nature the deeper must be the passion, and of 
hoping that the human soul will yet burst into grander 
blossoms of love than ever poet has dreamed, not to say 
sung. I leave it also to the hearts of those who under- 
stand that love is greater than knowledge. For those 
who have neither heart nor imagination — only brains — 
to them I presume to leave nothing, knowing what self- 
satisfying resources they possess of their own. 

The pair wandered all over the ruins together, and 
Dorothy had a hundred places to take Richard to and 
tell him what they had been and how they had looked in 
their wholeness and use — amongst the rest her own 
chamber, whither Marquis had brought her the letter 
which mistress Upstill had found so badly concealed. 

Then Richard’s turn came, and he gave Dorothy a 
sadly vivid account of what he had seen of the destruc- 
tion of the place; how, as if with whole republics of 
ants, it had swarmed all over with men paid to destroy 
it ; how in every direction the walls were falling at once ; 
how they dug and drained at fish-ponds and moat in the 
wild hope of finding hidden treasure, and had found in 
the former nothing but mud and a bunch of huge old 
keys, the last of some lost story of ancient days, — in the 
latter nothing but a pair of silver-gilt spurs, which he 
had himself bought of the fellow who found them. He 
told her what a terrible shell the Tower of towers had 
been to break — how after throwing its battlemented 
crown into the moat, they had in vain attacked the 
walls, might almost as well have sought with pickaxes 


LOVE AND NO LEASING. 


549 


and crowbars to tear asunder the living rock, and at last 
— but this was hearsay, he had not seen it — had under- 
mined the wall, propped it up with timber, set the 
timber on fire, and so succeeded in bringing down a 
portion of the hard, tough, massy defense. 

“What became of the wild beasts in the base of the 
kitchen-tower, dost know, Richard?” 

“ I saw their cages,” answered Richard, “ but they 
were empty. I asked what they were, and what had be- 
come of the animals, of which all the country had heard, 
but no one could tell me. I asked them questions until 
they began to puzzle themselves to answer them, and 
now I believe all Gwent is divided between two opinions 
as to their fate — one, that they are roaming the country, 
the other that lord Herbert, as they still call him, has by 
his magic conveyed them away to Ireland to assist him 
in a general massacre of the Protestants.” 

Mighty in mutual faith, neither politics, nor morals, 
nor even theology was any more able to part those whose 
plain truth had begotten absolute confidence. Strive 
they might, sin they could not, against each other. 
They talked, wandering about, a long time, forgetting, I 
am sorry to say, even their poor shivering horses, which, 
after trying to console themselves with the renewal of a 
friendship which a broad white line across Lady’s face 
had for a moment, on Dick’s part, somewhat impeded, 
had become very restless. At length an expostulatory 
whinny from Lady called Richard to his duty, and with 
compunctions of heart the pair hurried to mount. They 
rode home together in a bliss that would have been too 
deep almost for conscious delight but that their animals 
were eager after motion, and as now the surface of the 
fields had grown soft, they turned into them, and a tre- 
mendous gallop soon brought their gladness to the sur- 
face in great fountain throbs of joy. 


CHAPTER LIX. 


ave! vale! salve! 

A ND now must I bury my dead out of my sight — bid 
farewell to the old, resplendent, stately, scarred, 
defiant Raglan, itself the grave of many an old story, 
and the cradle of the new, and alas ! in contrast with the 
old, not merely the mechanical, but the unpoetic and 
commonplace, yes vulgar era of our island’s history. 
Little did lord Herbert dream of the age he was initiat- 
ing — of the irreverence and pride and destruction that 
were about to follow in his footsteps, wasting, defiling, 
scarring, obliterating, turning beauty into ashes, and 
worse! That divine mechanics should thus, through 
selfishness and avarice, be leagued with filth and squalor 
and ugliness ! When one looks upon Raglan, indig- 
nation rises — not at the storm of iron which battered its 
walls to powder, hardly even at the decree to level them 
with the dust, but at the later destroyer who could 
desecrate the beauty yet left by wrath and fear, who 
with the stones of my lady’s chamber would build a 
kennel, or with the carved stones of chapel or hall a 
barn or cowhouse ! What would the inventor of the 
water-commanding engine have said to the pollution of 
our waters, the destruction of the very landmarks of our 
history, the desecration of ruins that ought to be 
venerated for their loveliness as well as their story ! 
Would he not have broken it to pieces, that the ruin it 
must occasion might not be laid to his charge? May 
all such men as for the sake of money constitute them- 
selves the creators of ugliness, not to speak of far worse 


AVE! VALE! SALVE I 


551 


evils in the land, live — or die, I care not which — to 
know in their own selves what a lovely human Psyche 
lies hid even in the chrysalis of a railway-director ; and 
to loathe their past selves as an abomination — incredible 
but that it had been. He who calls such a wish a curse, 
must undergo it ere his being can be other than a blot. 

But this era too will pass and truth come forth in 
forms new and more lovely still. 

The living Raglan has gone from me, and before me 
rise the broken, mouldering walls which are the monu- 
ment of their own past. My heart swells as I think of 
them, lonely in the deepening twilight, when the ivy 
which has flung itself like a garment about the bareness 
of their looped and windowed raggedness is « but as 
darker streaks of the all prevailing dusk, and the moon 
is gathering in the east. Fain would the soul forsake 
the fettersome body for a season to go flitting hither and 
thither, alighting and flitting, like a bat or a bird — now 
drawing itself slow along a moulding to taste its curve 
and flow, now creeping into a cranny, and brooding and 
thinking back till the fancy feels the tremble of an 
ancient kiss yet softly rippling the air, or descries the 
dim stain which no tempest can wash away. Ah, here 
is a stair ! True there are but three steps, a broken one, 
and a fragment. What said I ? See how the phantom- 
steps continue it, winding up and up to the door of my 
lady’s chamber ! See its polished floor, black as night, 
its walls rich with tapestry, lovelily old, and harmoniously 
withered, for the ancient time had its ancient times, and 
its things that had come down from solemn antiquity — 
see the silver sconces, the tall mirrors, the part-open 
window, long, low, carved, latticed, and filled with 
lozenge panes of the softest yellow green, in a multitude 
of shades ! There stands my lady herself, leaning from 
jt ; looking down into the court ! Ah lovely lady ! is not 


552 


ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL. 


thy heart as the heart of my mother, my wife, my 
daughters ? Thou hast had thy troubles. I trust they 
are over now, and that thou art satisfied with God for 
making thee ! 

The vision fades, and the old walls rise like a broken 
cenotaph. But the same sky, with its clouds never the 
same, hangs over them ; the same moon will fold them 
all night in a doubtful radiance, befitting the things that 
dwell alone, and are all of other times, for she too is but 
a ghost, a thing of the past, and her light is but the light 
of memory ; into the empty crannies blow the same winds 
that once refreshed the souls of maiden and man-at-arms, 
only the yellow flower that grew in its gardens now grows 
upon its walls. And however the mind, or even the 
spirit of man may change, the heart remains the same, 
and an effort to read the hearts of our forefathers will 
help us to know the heart of our neighbor. 


Whoever cares to distinguish the bones of fact from, the 
drapery of invention in the foregone tale , will find them all 
in the late Mr. Dircks's “ Life of the Marquis of Worces- 
ter,” and the “ Certamen Religiosum,” and “ Golden 
Apophthegms” of Dr. Bayly. 


THE END 


4 


25 1904 













